A Beautiful Book About A Stunning Woman and Her Painting

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	• Tamara de Lempicka: The Artist, The Woman, The Legend Emmanuel Breon Flammarion, 2007 - 144 pages average customer review:based on 1 review view larger image
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A Beautiful Book About A Stunning Woman and Her Painting

Tamara de Lempicka was born Marie Gorska in Poland in 1898. She married young and moved to St. Petersburg. Her husband was arrested by the Bolsheviks and she won his freedom with her charm. They fled to Paris where she studied very hard to become an artist. She was renowned as a portrait painter of the rich and famous. Bisexual, she slept with many of her subjects.

It would be difficult to get past the sensational events in the life of Tamara de Lempicka to her work except that the work is every bit as sensational. These Art Deco paintings have the immediate appeal of posters--realistic but mannered images with intense colors, smooth surfaces, and voluptuous figures. The word critics have most often applied to her as an artist is "strange."

Her technique seems to have sprung into full flower without any period of development, became instantly fixed in all its peculiarities and never changed. (She did try to alter her technique in later years with disappointing results and quit exhibiting.) Only a few early paintings lack the svelte characteristics that make her work instantly recognizable. Surprisingly this technique served her well enough even when she chose subjects other than portraits of the rich and famous for which she was noted and in demand in her heyday.

Lempicka stands apart from other modern artists, a forceful personality of sizable proportions, and the icon of Art Deco. She outlived her fame and glory and her later years were not happy or productive. She died in Mexico in 1980 at the age of 82 and at her request her ashes were scattered on Mount Popacatepetl, a fitting and dramatic end to an unusual life.

This lovely book, published on the occasion of an exhibit of her work, is divided in three sections:The Artist, The Woman, and The Legend. In addition to the excellent reproductions of her paintings and nine essays by seven critics and her granddaughter, there are stunning photographs of Lempicka herself and some of her apartment in Paris.

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A femme fatale to equal Greta Garbo and Mae West, and a fashion icon in her own lifetime, this exhibition catalog is dedicated to the artist as well as the concept of the modern woman she represented. Born in 1898 in Warsaw, Lempicka fled during the Bolshevik Revolution, arriving in Paris in 1918 where she began painting under André Lhote. Influenced by a trip to Italy, she combined neo-cubism and Renaissance influences, reducing the harmony of her colors to the essential and tightly framing her portraits in order to give the figures energy and stature. In 1933 she married her best client, Baron Raoul Kuffner de Dioszegh, and in 1939 they left for America where Tamara conquered New York and Los Angeles exhibiting in important galleries.Divided into three sections, the book focuses on her distinctive artistic style, and on her fascination with the female form, which she glorified in paintings such as her famous Beautiful Rafaela, Portrait of a Young Girl in a Green Dress, and Portrait of Suzi Solidor. In the third section, author Emmanuel Bréon and the artist's granddaughter unveil the legend of Lempicka, illustrated with rare and sultry archival photographs of the artist. The appendixes include a detailed illustrated chronology and a catalog of works. The book's modern design reflects the Art Deco style and makes Tamara de Lempicka an attractive addition to the library of Lempicka and Art Deco fans.

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