A paper discussing the life and works of Art Deco portraitist Tamara de Lempicka

1. -1 During the tumultuous twenties the Parisian art world exploded, introducing the
world to new and exciting artists. In this fertile environment female artists were gaining
momentum in the fight against being labeled as decorative painters. Tamara de Lempicka
struggled throughout her career to be accepted as a serious and gifted painter of immense
talent and skill. She was a thoroughly modern woman with a deep respect for the
classicism of the Renaissance masters and formal technique. Lempicka’s brilliant use of
color, attention to line and form and preternatural luminosity and finish establish Tamara
de Lempicka as one of the most dynamic artists of the 20th century.
The artist was born Tamara Rosalia Gurwick-Gorska on May 11th, 1898 in
Moscow. While the artist gives the year 1898 as her birth year, she was known to lie
about her age and various family documents imply her actual birth year to be closer to
1895. Lempicka was of Polish descent yet several documents state the family resided in
Moscow, traveling often to Warsaw to holiday.1 Many of the accounts of the artists life
are contradictory as it seems the artist often fused fantasy and reality in her recollections.
Her parents divorced when she was five and her father is rarely mentioned thereafter.
Lempicka remained close with her mother and grandmother who was the impetus
for the artists interest in art. At the age of thirteen, the artist, feigning a severe cough,
convinced her grandmother Clementine to take her on a trip to Italy to take advantage of
the more benign climate. While in Italy, Clementine led the young painter on a tour of the
works of the great masters expounding on such subjects as treatment of light, brushstroke
and composition as well as other tenets of art. While on their travels Clementine hired a
young Frenchman to teach Tamara to paint watercolors. 2This trip was so influential to
the painter that she returned to Italy yearly to study the works of the great masters and

2. 15th century painting. She seemed particularly attracted to the Italian use of color and the
Northern masters treatment of light.
When finished with her formal education, Tamara went to live with her wealthy
Aunt Stefa and Uncle Maurice in St. Petersburg, Russia. Living with her Aunt and Uncle,
Tamara indulged her taste for luxury and society life. It was in St. Petersburg that the
young Tamara Gorska First met and fell in love with Tadeusz Lempicki. Tamara Gorska
married Tadeusz Lempicki in 1915 or 1916 when she was approximately twenty years
old.3
In the winter of 1917 the Bolshevik secret police arrested Tadeusz; Lempicka
searched the prisons of the newly named Petrograd for her husband until she was able to
enlist the help of the Swedish consul. The price of her husband’s freedom was Mrs.
Lempicka herself.4 The Lempiccy escaped St. Petersburg to Paris and there established
themselves among the refugee aristocracy now gathered in Paris. Once in Paris the reality
of their situation began to weigh on the little family. Tadeusz either couldn’t or wouldn’t
find a job and in late 1919 Tamara broke down to her practical younger sister saying, “We
have no money, and he beats me.” To which Adrienne replied then you must work.” It is
this moment that the artist credits with the inspiration for her painting career.5 By the end
of 1919 Tamara de Lempicka enrolled in the Academie Ransom where she studied under
Maurice Denis. After becoming disillusioned with Monsieur Denis, Lempicka went to
study with Andre Lhote. Under Lhote, Lempicka learned to emphasize spatial balance
and form and perhaps most important, she developed her penchant for strong, clear
colors. Lempicka went on to show three pieces in the Salon d’Automne in the winter of
1922, of which both her sister Adrienne and former instructor Maurice Denis sat on the

3. committee that juried the exhibition.6 It was during this time that Tamara began to
alternately use both the feminine and masculine form of her name perhaps in order to
avoid the categorization often accorded to women artists of the time as primarily
decorative. She later explained to an Italian friend that she felt she deserved the respect
the masculine form inspired. Lempicka fought for entire career to be taken seriously as a
dominant creative presence in the art world.7
While she did create several abstract works, Lempicka is primarily known as a
portrait artist of the Art Deco style. She painted the best and brightest of society as well
as aggressive, nudes of prostitutes; Another example of the paradox that is Tamara de
Lempicka. While maintaining the illusion of the propriety due her class, Lempicka would
roam the gutters of Monmarte at night experimenting with drugs and sex, only to return
home in the early hours to paint in a cocaine frenzy until she collapsed.8 One of her more
memorable nudes, Andromeda (Figure 1)reveals the implicit eroticism Lempicka came to
be known for.
In Lempicka’s 1928 painting of a seated female nude with wrists chained the artist
uses the figure to create a strong diagonal set against the vertical lines of the urban setting
in the background. Lempicka’s Andromeda has a thickened neck, characteristic of Jean
Auguste Dominique Ingres, reflecting the influence of her former teacher Andre Lhote.
Again, the artist limits her palette to grays, the earthy tones of the models flesh and her
seductive red lips. The subject is lushly modeled, displaying Lempicka’s talent for light
and form. The planes of the nude figure’s body are more realistically rendered than the
heavily stylized forms of earlier paintings such as Perspective, 1923. The progression of
Lempicka’s work illustrates her move away from Cubism towards her own distinct style,

4. often referred to as Art Deco portraiture. She continued to create striking nudes, of which
is the eternal Adam and Eve (Figure 2). In 1931 Lempicka painted Adam and Eve, one of
the most timeless pieces she produced during her career. Painted on wood panel as were
many of her works during the Great Depression, the painting has a luminescence that is
worthy of its divine subject matter. The artist’s account of the conception of the piece
infers the pride Lempicka took in the finished work.
I was in my studio in Paris, painting this girl, a perfection of beauty, classic. And
I’m working for forty-five minutes, and then for fifteen minutes, it’s rest. So there was
fifteen minutes of rest and she was walking around all nude, and she approached my big
black table, a huge table on which there was fruit, beautifully arranged. And she said,
“Could I take an apple?” I said, “Naturally, go ahead.” She took the apple and took it to
her mouth. And I said, “Don’t move. You look like Eve. We need Adam. Now I know the
painting I want to do. We need Adam.” And then I remembered that in the same street
there was a policeman, a very good looking policeman. I said, “Wait a minute.” And I
was in my painting blouse, all dirty from painting, my hair…doesn’t matter what. I say,
“You wait here and eat your apple.” I went out of my studio into the street, and I saw the
policeman often there so I knew him. And I came to him, and quick I said, “Look, I’m a
painter, you know me?” He said, “Oh yes Madame, I know you and I have a
reproduction of your painting. I cut it out and put it on the wall.” And I said, “Could you
come sit for a painting?” He said, “When.” I said, “Tomorrow.” “I will.”… I couldn’t
believe it. So the next day, I was waiting with my model, will he come or will he not
come? A policeman! At that minute, he came. And I said, “You can undress and put your
things here.” In my studio, and the girl was all nude. He undressed and put very cleanly

5. his things, everything corner to corner, put this, put that, and as he was an officer, he put
the revolver on top of everything. And then he came and he said, “How to stand?” I said,
“Take one arm and put around the girl and the other one take a position.”… And while
he was there all nude, his revolver was next to me. So there he was all nude with her
nude. But the revolver was next to me.9
While the subject matter of Adam and Eve is a more traditional narrative, Lempicka
continues to imbue her work with a cool, detached eroticism. The two figures dominate
the picture plane with their muscular frames. The figures, cut off at the knees, are locked
in an embrace with Adam’s back presented to the viewer. Lempicka’s Eve clutches the
apple where it seems to barely graze her shoulder. Like her teacher Lhote, Lempicka
limits her palette to three main colors of gray, warm flesh tones and the red of Eve’s lips,
fingernail, and nipple. The figures seem to glow in contrast to the steely, hard urban
background. Lempicka’s geometric treatment of the background and the figures shows
the remaining influence that Cubism had on Tamara de Lempicka’s art. The eyes are left
blank, contributing to the aloofness of the two figures surrounded by their concrete Eden.
Adam and Eve is an archetypal example of Lempicka’s style at the height of her career.
If it was the artist nudes that struck her soul, it was her portraits which paid the
bills. One of her most profitable commissions was that of Millionaire scientist, Dr. Pierre
Boucard (Figure 3). In the Late twenties, Lempicka was commissioned by Dr. Boucard to
paint at least four portraits of his family and retained first rights to anything painted by
the artist for the subsequent two years.
Dr. Boucard made his fortune through the discovery of the medicine Lacteol.10
Lempicka referenced this in his portrait by painting Dr. Boucard with a microscope and a

6. test tube of his invention. The figure is twisted, implying movement and set against a
background of grays geometric shapes. As in most of Lempicka’s portraits, the canvas
ends just below the knees cutting off the feet of the figure. Lempicka paints Dr. Boucard
in a white trench coat rather than a doctor’s lab coat. The white of the coat serves to
suggest the lab coat while imbuing the Dr. with an air of sophistication and style his new
wealth permitted him. The overall effect of the piece is that of a luminous, largely
monochromatic, and dynamic portrait of an intelligent, charismatic, and cosmopolitan
man. Due to portraits such as that of Dr. Boucard, Tamara de Lempicka became known
for her ability to illustrate the psyche of the sitter; Her patrons began to trust the artist to
determine how the subject should be presented to the viewer.
Tamara de Lempicka’s 1929 portrait of dancer Nana de Herrera (Figure 4) is a
fascinating representation of both the Baron Kuffner’s Andalusian mistress as well as the
emotions of the artist painting the portrait. Painted six years before Tamara de Lempicka
married the Baron, he commissioned her to paint his mistress. Lempicka was reluctant to
paint the woman and it shows in the awkward position and pained expression of the
figure11. The background is characteristically linear with the artist employing yet again
only three colors in the entire piece. The artist later recounted her displeasure with the
experience, saying,
I told Kuffner that I had heard of his friend and that she must be very beautiful if
she was a dancer. He said, “I will call her and tell her top come see you.” I was very
surprised. When she came to my studio, she was badly dressed, she was not elegant, she
was not chic. I thought, oh, no, I don’t want to paint her. I cannot believe that’s the
famous Nana de Herrera. Well, I thought, let’s try. So in my studio I said, “Sit down.”

7. She sits down. I don’t like it. And I said, “Take this off.” I don’t like it. “The hair,” I said.
“How do you have your hair done?” “Oh,” she said, “Just with a flower.” “So where is
the flower?” Finally I took everything off until she was nude. Then I added lace here,
there. I said, “Cover up a little bit here, here, and here.” As long as she was dressed, it
was impossible. So ugly. I couldn’t believe it. And I thought, “This man has very bad
taste.” But when she was nude, then she was a little more interesting. Still, as long as she
sat there she was nobody. And I said, “No, no, no.” And I was about to give up the
portrait, not do it at all, until I said, “When you dance, how do you look?” And she did
this expression. And I said, “That’s all right,” and then I painted her. 12
Accounts such as the above give us insight into Lempicka’s frenetic psyche. Her
fast paced life inspired great art yet her name has become lost, excluded from textbooks
on Modern art, almost forgotten if not for Alain Blondel. Blondel is responsible for
resuscitating Lempicka’s career in 1969. The exposure Blondel created emboldened the
Galerie du Luxembourg to stage an exhibition of forty eight pieces from the painter’s
early period between 1925 and 1935.13 Despite the renewed interest in Lempicka as a
painter, she remains a foot note of art history. Failed to be recognized for her
contributions to modern art through the luminosity and precision of her work; she single
handedly defines a movement and an era with her Deco sensibilities and cool, classical
aesthetic.

8. Figure 1
Figure 2
Figure 3
Figure 4

9. 1 TdL: A Life of Deco and Decadence, p. 10
2 TdL: Deco and Decadence, p. 31
3 TdL: Deco and Decadence, p. 54
4 TdL: Deco and Decadence, p. 59-60
5 Passion by Design, p. 36
6 Passion by Design, p. 47
7 TdL: Deco and Decadence, p. 99
8 TdL: Deco and Decadence, p. 94
9 TdL: Deco and Decadence, p. 179-180
10 TdL, p. 72
11 TdL, p. 71
12 TdL: Deco and Decadence, p. 158-159
13 TdL: Deco and Decadence, p. 310-311