Tamara De Lempicka Biography | Oil Paintings

She was born Maria Górska. Tamara de Lempicka came from a Polish upper-class family, which gave her an excellent all-around international education. In 1916 she married Tadeusz Lempicki, in 1918 she and her Russian husband fled the Russian Revolution to Paris.

Here Tamara de Lempicka came under the influence of the avant-garde artists, Fernand Leger. Yet, the painter whose work most impressed her and whose style is reflected in her female nudes was Paul Cezanne, then near the end of his long career. Lempicka became one of the most fashionable portrait painters in Paris in the interwar period, her work emphasizing the glamor and ostentatious wealth of her patrons, idealizing their beauty and elegance.

The other side of Tamara de Lempicka was her homosexuality, famous for her sex drive, she was a great beauty and she was bisexual. In the decadence and freedom associated with the roaring 1920s in Paris, she could have it all, artistic respect, lots of money, and lots of sexual gratification on the side. Her affairs with both men and women were scandalous and legendary.

Her portraits and nudes often used suggestive elements and produced strong effects of sexual desire and seduction. In the 1920s she became associated with lesbian and bisexual women in writing and artistic circles which were reflected in her extraordinary studies of female nudes, always fully representational with overtones of Cubism in the use of simplified anatomy and the geometric patterns of the background. The result was electrifying and distinctive.

Art Movement History: Art Nouveau, Art Deco, Cubism.
Artists Influencing Tamara de Lempicka: Paul Cezanne, Fernand Leger.
She Traveled To Denmark, England, USA, Mexico, Hungary, Germany, Spain, Greece, France, Russia, Switzerland.
Artist's Biography compiled by Albert L. Mansour at The World's Artist.