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Tamara de Lempicka (Polish, 1898-1980)
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Tamara de Lempicka
Blue Drapery 1974
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Tamara de Lempicka
Still Life with Grapes 1952
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Biography |
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Polish-born painter active in Paris and the USA She was born Tamara Gorska in Warsaw to wealthy parents and in 1916 she married Tadeusz Lempicki, a Russian lawyer and socialite. |
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In 1918 they fled the Russian Revolution to Paris, where she studied with Maurice Denis and André Lhote. She quickly established a reputation as a painter of portraits, mainly of people in the smart social circles in which she moved-- writers, entertainers, the deposed nobility of eastern Europe. |
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Her style owes something to the 'cubism' of Léger, but is very distinctive in its hard, streamlined elegance and sense of chic decadence-- better than anyone else she represents the Art Deco style in painting. Apart from portraits, her main subjects were erotic nudes and still lifes of calla lilies. |
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She received considerable critical acclaim and also became a social celebrity, famed for her aloof Garboesque beauty, her parties, and her love affairs (with women as well as men). |
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In 1939 she moved to the USA with her second husband Baron Raoul Huffner, repeating her artistic and social success in Hollywood and New York. |
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By the 1950s, however, her work was going out of fashion. She tried painting pictures in a different, much looser style, but these were coolly received. |
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Exhibitions |
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2004 - 2005 |
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Kunstforu, Vienna |
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2004 |
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Royal Academy, London |
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1997 |
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Museum of Fine Arts of Hiroshima, Hiroshima |
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1994 |
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Academie de France (Villa Medici), Rome |
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1981 |
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Seibu, Tokyo |
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1972 |
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Galerie du Luxembourg, Paris |
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Literature |
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1997 |
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Blondel & Hiroohu, Lempicka, Tokyo, page 78, no. 32 |
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1994 |
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Calvesi & Borghese, Tamara de Lempicka. Tra eleganza e trasgressione. Leonardo Arte, Rome, no. 41 |
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1994 |
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Mori, Gioia, Lempicka Paris 1920-1938, Florence, page 196 |
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1993 |
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Neret Gilles, Lempicka 1898-1980, Benedikt Taschen Verlag GmbH, Cologne, page 30 |
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1993 |
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Thorman, Ellen Tamara de Lempicka, Berlin, no. 74 |
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1987 |
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De Lempicka-Foxhall & Phillips, Passion by Design, Abbeville Press Publishers, New York, page 128 |
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1986 |
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U.A.M., Editions du Regard, Paris, page 468 |
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1980 |
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Bazin & Itsuki, Lempicka, Parko Editions, Tokyo, No. 61 |
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1978 |
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Marmori, Giancarlo, Tamara de Lempicka, Idea Editions, page 58 |
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1972 |
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Vaux, Marc, Lempicka Foundation, Paris, No. 102 |
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1972 |
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Reau, Jean Lempicka Galerie Luxembourg, Paris, No. 43 |
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1935 |
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Dayot, Magdeleine A, "Tamara de Lempicka", No. 156 |
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1923 |
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De Lempicka, Tamara, Photo Album Notes, Lempicka Archives, Houston, No. 102 |
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