The “Baroness of Art Deco” Tamara De Lempicka

Tamara De Lempicka

Who in recent years has contributed to the rediscovery (at least in the media) and revaluation of Tamara De Lempicka was the popstar Madonna who, fascinated by the biography of the Polish artist, has become the main collector of his works, lent to some museums for the realization of events, but also presented in music videos of some of his greatest achievements.

Tamara De Lempicka
An icon of charm and elegance, attentive to her image, which certainly did not go unnoticed, a symbol of transgression and emancipation of women in the twentieth century – her famous self-portrait at the wheel of the Green Bugatti (1932), which in 1978 on the “New York Time” earned her the nickname of “Goddess with steel eyes in the age of the car”,is an emblem of the independence of the woman, seductive, free to drive and speed wherever she wants – Tamara de Lempicka built an aura of mystery around her personality, starting from birth. Not on 16 May 1902, as she declared, but in 1898, perhaps in Warsaw or more probably in Moscow, as it seemed more convenient to her, certainly to be able to hide her Jewish fatherly origins, but also because the Russian nationality made her appear “noble”.

Tamara De LempickaThese are the ambitions of a beautiful woman, a diva, and as such unattainable and capricious, who immediately wanted to build a character and a memorable life. “Donna d’oro” (Golden Woman) was defined by D’annunzio during her insistent courtship, always refused, and with these words Lempicka remembered him and their first meeting, which took place in Italy on the occasion of a trip with her maternal grandmother (1911) “I was a beautiful and young woman and in front of me I had an old dwarf in uniform”.

Tamara De Lempicka

Beautiful and sensual, dressed only in lipstick, caressing and pouring onto the sofa or bed, unreachable – in fact his portraits by many critics are considered “cold – the women of Tamara de Lempicka seem to live in a distant world. But it is a mistake to think of them as cold, melancholic and unreachable, they are seductive and emancipated, portrayed as protagonists with all their desire to be independent and without anyone else in the scene. In each of her works there is a different woman who is always the same, Tamara; in each of them there is a piece of her, which is told by painting the most beautiful women of the twentieth century, with clean and precise lines, colors (limited to a small number) bright and strong. Women who look far away, as if they wanted to escape, who seem to be looking at a distant horizon, in search of a serenity, the same one that Tamara was looking for from her depression that never granted her a break.

Tamara De Lempicka
Maybe Tamara described women so well because she loved them. Public is in fact her bisexuality and relationships with model Rafaela and Duchess Marika de La Salle, who posed for her several times. However, more than as a painter, her career began as a hat designer and, in the 30s, when her talent is now widely recognized and her life is divided between trips throughout Europe, suitors, lovers and exhibitions, she is also the model for some fashion houses. A few years earlier she had divorced the lawyer Tadeusz Łempicki, whom she had met and married at the age of 18 in St Petersburg, where she had moved on the death of her grandmother Clementine, who had taken care of her and made her attend prestigious schools. But it was in Paris that he began his brilliant career in high society and the world of art by frequenting Cubist and Futurist artists. Here he organized the first official exhibition at the Salon D’Automne and chose as her stage name Tamara De Lempicka (from her husband’s surname Lempicki). Forced to leave Europe in 1943, with her new husband, the rich baron of Jewish origin, Raoul Kuffner de Diószegh, she moved to the United States, where she became famous not only for her works of art, but also for her worldly lifestyle and the great parties she held in her villas. These are the years he used his spatula and abandoned his brush. The protagonists of his works become the huge American skyscrapers, sacred icons portrayed as theatrical actors. Works that fuel the mystery of this eccentric woman, bored by normality, but perfect interpreter of her time “I live life on the margins of society and the rules of normal society do not apply to those who live on the margins.

Tamara De Lempicka
On the night of March 18, 1980, the Baroness of Art Deco died in Mexico at the age of 82, exhausted by breathing difficulties. According to his will, the ashes were scattered on the crater of the volcano Popocatépetl.

by Angela Natrone