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.