Tamara de Lempicka: Surviving in Style

Tamara de Lempicka, "Young Woman in Green" (1931)

Just opened in San Francisco at the De Young museum: A retrospective of the work and life of Polish-born artist Tamara de Lempicka, the first exhibition of its kind in the US. 

Born Tamara Rosa Hurwitz, either in Warsaw or St. Petersburg to a family of Polish Jewish elites that encouraged her artistic interest with a tour of Italy. She married Tadeusz Lempicki in 1916, just before the October Revolution of the following year sent them fleeing Russia to Paris. Using the feminine declension of her husband's surname, Lampicka enrolled at free academies in the artistic community of Montparnasse, and began a lesbian affair with poet Ira Perrot, the subject of her first portraits. She began exhibiting at the Salon des Independants, held annually in Paris, under the masculine name Lempitzsky.

The timeline of Lempicka's life at the exhibit says that in 1922, "Tadeusz grows intolerant of his wife's affairs, cocaine use, late nights spent at clubs followed by valerian-induced sleep, and long work sessions listening to Richard Wagner at full volume." The couple divorced the year she painted a portrait of him, wherein his left hand (where his wedding ring would be worn) is purposely left unfinished. Lempicka picked up her paintbrush to support herself and her child,  exhibiting in the United States, and with the Société des Femmes Artistes Modernes in Paris. She subsequently married Baron Raoul Kuffner, becoming Baroness Kuffner.

"The Communicant" (1928)

The De Young exhibition starts with her influences, including her 1930 painting "St. Teresa of Avila," based on Bernini's 1652 statue "The Ecstasy of St. Teresa."  Ecstatic themes appear elsewhere in her work, as in "The Communicant" (1928), depicting her daughter Kizette with ecstatic-looking eyes in glowing white communion apparel, with the suggestion of a dove plucking at her garment. Kizette could never recall taking communion, and the painting was possibly a means of covering the family's Jewish heritage. 

Another painting in the exhibit, "Woman with Dove" (1931) picks up on an 18th-century pastel by Venetian artist Rosalba Carriera. "Bacchante" (ca. 1932) depicts a woman whose ringlets and dreamy eyes mimic in shape and color the grapes she wears in her hair. "Graziella" (ca. 1937), a female figure with leaves in her hair, is inspired by Botticelli's "Virgin and Child with Saint John the Baptist and Six Singing Angels," in which, "particular emphasis was put into the representation of flowers and their meanings."

Lempicka's women are potent and powerful, built with geometric forms as though they were architecture, and often depicted in front of skyscrapers. From 1927 through 1930, she contributed cover illustrations to Die Dame, a prestigious women's magazine published in Berlin.  One of these was her famous self-portrait in a green Bugatti. "Reaching the peak of popularity in the interwar years, Die Dame documented the aspirations and successes, including newly gained economic opportunities of 'the modern woman,' and Lempicka's powerful image soon became emblematic," the exhibit notes state. 

"Nude with Buildings" (1930) (detail)

Painting nude women was another way that Lempicka broke ground, since as the exhibit notes state, "The female nude was traditionally considered the male painter's domain and its object the gratification of the heterosexual male gaze." In her 1930 painting "Nude with Buildings," the woman depicted looks downwards with a knowing glance; in her hand she holds the sprig of a plant interpreted as an olive branch, but which also looks like the coca plant.  

The exhibit will run through February 9, 2025. Lempicka's great-grandaughter Marisa de Lempicka, who runs her estate, was on hand at the opening. "She would be an Instagram star today because she knew how to promote herself," Marisa said. "She was a true original."

Madonna, Barbara Streisand, Jack Nicholson and (ugh) Harvey Weinstein are among those who have collected Lempicka's work. Her life is the subject of a musical now playing on Broadway, and a documentary, "The True Story of Tamara de Lempicka & The Art of Survival" premiered at the Mill Valley Film Festival on Friday and is also closing the festival as I write this today.  

The Fine Arts Museums of SF is also featuring the work of Mary Cassatt, at the Legion of Honor now through January 26, 2025. A new book "Paris in Ruins: Love, War, and the Birth of Impressionism" includes painter and muse Berthe Morisot as "the only woman to play a central role in the movement from the start." Another painter, model and style icon who used cocaine was Kiki de Montparnasse. 

Molly Tuttle, Brandy Clark and Patti Smith Rock Hardly Strictly Blue-Grass

The Annual Hardly Strictly Bluegrass free music festival, held in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park through the generosity of investment banker/banjo player Warren Hellman, tends to have its musical acts comment on being in the city once called Yerba Buena. 

In 2023, Rufus Wainwright opened his set with his song "Beautiful Child" by saying it was written on acid and mushrooms on Yoko Ono's farm, gesturing to the crowd and saying, "so, it feels proper." 

Very Important Pothead Kris Kristofferson, who died just before this year's festival, dueted with Merle Haggard on his satirical song "Oakie from Muskogee" at the 2011 fest. "I think when someone's 70 years old, they ought to be able to smoke anything they want to smoke," Haggard began, bringing cheers from the crowd for the verse, "We still wear our hair grow long and shaggy / like the people in San Francisco do." Kristofferson added his own clever verse, which he sang with a wry smile: "We don't shoot that deadly marijuana / We get drunk like God wants us to do." 

Tuttle (center, in green) with her female fiddle and bass player at HSB.

This year, Molly Tuttle brought her righteous bluegrass band Golden Highway, with which she's won the Grammy for Best Bluegrass Album two years running. Tuttle spoke of being raised in California and said she was offered her first pot brownie at Hardly Strictly when her mother brought her to the festival. Now a Tennessean, Tuttle rocked the crowd with her song, "Down Home Dispensary" from this year's Grammy-winning "City of Gold" CD.

Hello legislator the voters have spoken
There’s too much politickin' and not enough tokin’
It’s an economic agricultural wonder
So legalize the southland and roll us a number
Hey mister senator I’m asking you please
Put up a down home dispensary in Tennessee

Tuttle also performed the guitar solo and vocal on Tokin' Woman Grace Slick's "White Rabbit," another nod to San Francisco. The song was also performed at the fest by the three female back-up singers from the pot-friendly Dead cover band Moonalice, which includes in its lineup 84-year-old Lester Chambers, who performed the Chambers Brothers classic "Time Has Come Today." 

At another time and stage on Saturday, 85-year-old Mavis Staples belted out inspirational songs. Staples has said she didn't realize that The Band's "The Weight" was probably about a pot deal when she sang it, thinking it had a gospel connection instead. Carlene Carter, June Carter Cash's daughter by her first husband, ended her HSB set with "Wildwood Flower," a song by her grandmother and country music matriarch Maybelle Carter. Carlene revealed in the Ken Burns Country Music documentary series that Maybelle wanted to sing the Brewer & Shipley song "One Toke Over the Line," thinking it was a spiritual. (Apparently, Lawrence Welk did too.) 

Brandy Clark (center) with her all-girl power trio at HSB 2024

On Sunday I caught the set from singer/songwriter Brandy Clark, who co-wrote Kacey Musgraves's hit "Follow Your Arrow" (with its pot reference). Clark's songwriting on tunes like "Different Devil," "Come Back to Me," and "Girl Next Door" blew me away, as did her three-piece, all-girl band featuring Ellen Angelis on guitar. 

As Angelis tuned Clark's guitar for a spoken-word break, Clark told the crowd, "I can really smell the weed, so thank you." She closed with her 2013 tune, "Get High": 

You know life will let you down
Love will leave you lonely
Sometimes to only way to get by
Is to get high

The Festival wrapped up with Tokin' Woman Patti Smith performing her songs "Ghost Dance" and "Power To the People" along with "Smells Like Teen Spirit" in tribute to Kurt Cobain, who she noted died 30 years ago in 1994. "DON'T FORGET: USE YOUR VOICE!" Smith shouted to the crowd to end her set. 

The power to dream, to rule
To wrestle the world from fools
It's decreed the people rule
People have the power

Much of Hardly Strictly streamed online and will be made available at HSB-TV.

Nixon Caught On Tape Downplaying Dangers of Pot

Ehrlichman and Nixon

"Nixon Started the War on Drugs. Privately, He Said Pot Was ‘Not Particularly Dangerous,’" read a startling New York Times headline last week.

Minnesota cannabis lobbyist Kurtis Hanna was responsible for the story, after he listened to hours Nixon's infamous Oval Office tapes recently uploaded by the Richard Nixon Presidential Library. Hanna told the Times he has been "fascinated by the history of drug policy ever since he was arrested inside a casino in Iowa in 2009 and charged with possession of marijuana."

“Let me say, I know nothing about marijuana. I know that it’s not particularly dangerous, in other words, and most of the kids are for legalizing it," Nixon said in a March 1973 White House meeting with aides including then–White House press secretary Ronald Ziegler and White House counsel/Watergate conspirator John Ehrlichman.

Nixon added, "I don't think marijuana is (unintelligible) bad, but on the other hand, it’s the wrong signal at this time." He then began to talk about a coming law enforcement speech in which he would "totally" oppose legalization, bragging that no administration had been as hard-line on the issue, and opening a discussion about mandatory minimum sentences; penalties like five years for a trafficker, and life without parole for repeated offenses were put on the table.

Curiouser and Curiouser Cannabis Politics

If you were in Oregon on Sunday watching the heart-wrenching hour-long 60 Minutes program on 9/11 and the terrible toll it took on the FDNY, you would have seen an ad funded by the National Republican Congressional Committee slamming OR Congresswoman Val Hoyle for her association with the cannabis company La Mota while serving as OR’s labor commissioner. La Mota is under investigation by the FBI and the huge scandal around it lead to the resignation of Oregon’s Secretary of State. 

Hoyle responded to the ad when it first appeared, and a counter ad that aired just after the NRCC one on 60 Minutes featured a firefighter talking about Hoyle’s advocacy for workers. (A second appearance of the NRCC ad on the program went unrebutted.)

Hoyle has apparently been a friend in Congress, tweeting out support  for the cannabis industry when former NFLer and cannabis entrepreneur Ricky Williams visited her office in June. She seems to face scant competition from her “Young Gun” Republican challenger who has now called for a federal investigation into Hoyle and La Mota; still, it’s disturbing that NRCC would attack a Congressperson on this basis, even as presidential candidates Donald Trump and Kamala Harris now squabble about who is the bigger legalization supporter. 

"Bob Marley: One Love" Tells Rita's Story Too

Kingsley Ben-Adir as Bob Marley and Lashana Lynch as Rita in "One Love"

The biopic "Bob Marley: One Love," co-produced by several members of Marley's family, tells his and his wife Rita's story in a moving way seldom seen on film. 

Producers include Rita Marley, their oldest son David "Ziggy" (whose nickname means "little spliff"), and daughter Cedella (a cannabis cookbook author and musician). Stephen Marley, the couple's third child, was the film's music supervisor. Also involved as an executive producer, along with Brad Pitt, was Orly Agai Marley, a music industry executive who is married to Ziggy. 

Dionysian Tableau at Paris Olympics Shocks Christian Conservatives Who Forget Their Past

Christian conservatives have gone on the attack about protecting their children against a segment during last night's Olympics opening ceremony in Paris depicting what was seen as a Last Supper-like tableau with a Goddess in the center and Dionysus served up on a plate. 

“[The Last Supper] is not my inspiration and that should be pretty obvious," production designer Thomas Jolly said, [in translation]. "There’s Dionysus arriving on a table. Why is he there? First and foremost because he is the god of celebration in Greek mythology and the tableau is called ‘Festivity.’”  

“He is also the god of wine, which is also one of the jewels of France, and the father of Séquana, the goddess of the river Seine. The idea was to depict a big pagan celebration, linked to the gods of Olympus, and thus the Olympics.”

Those who could only see the Last Supper in the tableau are forgetting or were never taught their history (not to mention their herstory): Dionysus, the Greek god of wine and ecstasy, was by some accounts the son of the grain goddess Demeter of the ancient Eleusinian mysteries. Those mysteries saw yearly pilgrimages of the faithful to experience communion with each other via the sacrament kykeon, thought to be a psychedelic potion. 

Of Usha, Kamala, and the Hindu Kush

J.D. and Usha Vance at their Hindu wedding. 

Both our Vice President (and now likely Presidential candidate) Kamala Harris and Usha Chilukuri Vance, the wife of Republican Vice Presidential Candidate JD Vance, have roots in the Hindu religion, which has sacred connections to cannabis. 

"The academic study of Indic religions, and of yoga, has been intimately tied to questions regarding the role of psychoactive substances from an early stage. This is particularly with respect to soma, a sacred beverage utilized within the Vedic tradition," writes Stuart Ray Sarbacker, Professor of Comparative Religion and Indian Philosophy at Oregon State University, in his paper "Psychoactives and Psychedelics in Yoga: Historical Contexts and Contemporary Culture."

Dr. Sarbacker continues, "The role and nature of the beverage referred to as soma in the Vedic tradition of fire sacrifice (yajña) and its purported psychoactivity has been thoroughly investigated within and outside of Indology. ... Soma is revered as a sacred beverage and as a deity, said to confer visionary experience and immortality upon the brāhmaṇa who ritually consumes it. Soma is identified as amṛta, literally the elixir of 'nondeath,' of immortality, a name resonating through the millennia of later Hindu narrative and discourse. There are various hypotheses as to the botanical identity of soma, some of the leading candidates being ephedra, peganum harmala (Syrian rue), cannabis, poppy, mead or wine, ergot, amanita muscaria (Fly Agaric mushroom), psilocybe cubensis (Magic Mushroom), and an ayahuasca analog."

Chris Bennett, Lynn Osburn & Judy Osburn write in their book Green Gold The Tree of Life: Marijuana in Magic & Religion, "Descriptions of haoma, or soma, list it as yellow or gold-like in color, the color of ripe cannabis in the Middle East and India. Source material on the subject also tells us that 'the intoxicating juice of the haoma herb found on their mountain slopes' grew in the Hindu Kush mountains and valleys, a place that is still famed for its powerful ganja."

Harris (top left) wearing a sari. 

"Cannabis use is a part of mainstream Hindu practice, prevalent during Mahāśivarātri, Durgā Pūjā, and other festivals [including Diwali] in the consumption of bhaṅgā, a mixture of cannabis, milk, and spices, which augments the festival spirit," writes Sarbacker. "Routine cannabis use is extensive among renouncer (sādhu and sādhvī) communities in India as a sacramental substance and a social glue. Some Sādhus and Sādhvīs are said to follow, per Bevilacqua, the so-called 'chillumchai' diet—combining the mildly psychedelic effect of Indian cannabis with the stimulation of tea with sugar and spices. One study found that among a subset of Sādhus present at the Paśupatināth temple in Nepal, virtually all used cannabis regularly, with a high percentage reporting its use as a support for meditation."