Tamara de Lempicka is a secret woman, a master of outrageousness, a unique artist who became a millionaire during her lifetime

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Tamara Lempicka, she is "Diva Art Deco", she is "Icon of the Jazz era", she is "Queen of Modern", she is one of the unique cases when a woman artist managed to find her place in the sun during her lifetime. Millionaire, socialite, harbinger of the era of glamor, mysterious and extravagant, known for her love affairs with both men and women. Lovely Tamara. She made herself, showing exceptional will and talent.

Brilliant, with a unique artistic style inherent only to her, Tamara de Lempicki, like a star appeared in the horizon of art history, flashing brightly during a period of windbreak that ruined the fate of not only people, but entire countries.

Art critics still solve her life path like a crossword puzzle, trying to recreate the most truthful version of it. The fate of the mysterious Tamara Lempicki is as incredible as the time in which she lived and worked. It was the era of art deco and jazz, shocking and female emancipation, when an artist could simultaneously shock the high society of Europe and America with her unacceptable lifestyle, and at the same time be equal to it.

The amazing life of an incredible woman who made a name for herself with her own hands

No one knows for sure the date of her birth, which fluctuates between 1894 and 1898. The place of birth, according to Tamara herself, is Warsaw. Although, according to reliable data, she was born in Moscow in the family of a French woman Malvina Dekler and a Polish Jew Boris Gurvich-Gursky, who divorced soon after her birth.

Tamara did everything to confuse the facts and dates of her biography, rewriting it many times, deleting everything that was inconvenient and dissonant. Therefore, it is rather difficult to restore details about childhood, but it is reliably known that a large role in growing up was played by the grandmother Clementine, who raised Tamara. She taught the girl music, took her to Italy, talked about beauty and shaped her taste. Even in childhood, Tamara predicted the future of a pianist.

Since 1910, Tamara often visits St. Petersburg and begins to appear. At one of the balls, she meets Tadeusz Lempicki, a handsome man, a wealthy banker and one of the most enviable suitors. The girl fell in love without memory and, charming the chosen one, at a very young age married him, changing her maiden name to a more harmonious one.

However, the happiness of the young did not last long - the year 1917 came. Tadeusz was arrested by the Chekists and Tamara had to make incredible efforts, all her connections and charm, to get her husband out of prison, then get fake documents and flee from Russia to Paris.

It would seem that the difficulties were left behind, but, as it turned out, they were just beginning. Tadeusz - like many outwardly strong people, turned out to be helpless in the face of reality - the piled-up problems completely broke his will. He started drinking and did not try to change anything. By that time, the couple already had a child - daughter Kisette.

Therefore, it was not because of a good life that Tamara had to stand at the easel. The revolution, flight from Russia, ruin, the birth of a daughter forced Tamara to shoulder the responsibility for the family on her fragile shoulders and start “spinning” herself.

The money raised from the sale of family jewelry has run out. And Tamara had no other choice but to think of something in order to survive in a foreign country. And then she suddenly remembered how in childhood she was told that she had artistic abilities.

In Paris, she was fortunate enough to meet the artist and her permanent mentor Andre Lot, who initiated her in his development of a new style in the direction of the so-called "soft cubism". The talented student quickly picked up the new method and introduced it into her work, giving her a unique handwriting.

In the early 20s, her still lifes and portraits were already selling quite well. Lempitskaya managed to find her own special style, representing "a hybrid of postcubism and neoclassicism." Her paintings were immediately appreciated by the art market, greedy for everything new and unusual. As they say, the artist got into the stream, taking her niche in painting.

And very soon Lempicka turned from a hopeless emigrant into a fashionable artist and an eccentric society lady. She positioned herself as a vamp woman with sophisticated manners and the right connections. And now, by the mid-1920s, Tamara begins to exhibit her works at exhibitions, delighting the public, and at the age of 30 she earns her first million.

The artist portrayed secular ladies, crowned heads and millionaires, but did not forget herself. Her self-portrait in a green bugatti is considered the first image of a woman driving a car.

The doors of the best galleries opened in front of the artist, customers queued up for her portraits. Tamara de Lempicka became part of bohemian Paris overnight, which allowed her to make acquaintances with Pablo Picasso, Jean Cocteau and André Gidde. Magazines published her work on the covers and wrote laudatory articles in which they praised the fashionable artist to the skies, calling her free, independent, self-sufficient.

And she actually fit that image. Demonstrating her freedom, she did not hide her romances with both men and women. At the same time, their marriage with Tadeusz had already begun to crack at all the seams, and in the end they divorced. Tamara did not manage to finish the portrait of her husband, she did not finish the left hand with the wedding ring. Their parting passed without regret …

Acquaintance with her second husband, Baron Küfner, happened at the turn of the 20-30s. He ordered a portrait of his mistress Nana Herrera, whom Tamara a little later compromised in the eyes of her lover, depicting her in her painting "A Group of Four Nudes" in an obscene form.

They said that when he saw his mistress in this form, the baron immediately broke off relations with her. And it was quite possible that Tamara herself fascinated him with her talent, whose fan he was until the end of his days. One way or another, but in 1933, Raoul Kuffner and Tamara Lempicka got married.

This marriage for Tamara turned out to be very happy, with the baron they lived together for twenty-nine years. He idolized his wife and appreciated her talent. And despite their mutual agreement to freely have connections on the side, it was a harmonious union.

By the end of the 30s, life in Europe became unsafe for Jews and the couple had to go to America. Where Tamara immediately carried out a PR campaign: she sent her photo to various editorial offices, in which she shone like a movie star and organized a social reception for several hundred guests. In the American press, she was immediately known as the "Baroness with a brush." The advertising move turned out to be very successful, and Lempitskaya entered the elite of American society.

Life in America proceeded calmly and measuredly until Raoul suddenly died in 1962. After whose death Tamara had to move to her daughter. Tamara has never been a good mother - she practically did not take care of her upbringing, although she painted a large number of her portraits.

And oddly enough, however, Quisette never complained about the lack of attention from her mother, on the contrary, she even showed amazing devotion. Over the years, she will write a book about her mom's crazy life - "Passion by Design".

Tamara Lempitskaya expected another peak of success in life. The exposition of her works, exhibited in the Luxembourg Gallery in Paris, unexpectedly had a stunning success, which surpassed even the one that the artist had in the “Roaring Twenties”. Lempitskaya is back in fashion.

The life path of the shocking artist in Mexico ended at the age of 82 in a dream. And according to the will, the cremated ashes of the deceased were scattered over the Popocatepetl volcano.

Nowadays, Lempicka's paintings are worth millions at auctions. They are collected, stolen, they continue to rise in value and are considered a good investment for collectors. Many articles and books have been written about her. In the 1980s, the play "Tamara", dedicated to her life, was performed on the stage of many countries with great success.

An amazing life, its end and life after the life of an unusually mysterious woman. Is not it? The same cannot be said about many artists of those years who worked tirelessly, only for a piece of bread and died in poverty. And only decades later, their names were exalted to the top of Olympus.