Biography of Tamara De Lempicka

Eros on canvas

16 may 1898
March 18, 1980
Tamara De Lempicka art 22-Gorska, Rosalia (from the husband's surname Lempicka), famous in its day for its worldliness that for his painting, was born on 16 may 1898, perhaps in Warsaw, as claimed, or more probably in Moscow. In 1911 accomplishes an important trip to Italy along with the maternal grandmother, during which he discovered his passion for art. In 1914, disobeying the will of the parents, he interrupted his studies and moved to St. Petersburg, at aunt Stefa Jansen. During a party knows the young lawyer Tadeusz Lempicka and falls in love. They were married in 1916, shortly before the outbreak of the Russian revolution. The following year her husband is arrested for his militancy in the ranks but, thanks to his wife's relations, counter-revolutionary was soon released.
The two moved to Copenhagen, where they already are the parents of Tamara, and from there to Paris. In 1920, shortly after the birth of her daughter Kizette, Tamara decided to devote himself to painting and began attending the Académie de la Grande Chaumière, then takes lessons from Maurice Denis and André Lhote. In 1922 participates at the Salon d'Automne. After this her first appearance, she continues to exhibit in Paris until the second half of the 1930s. In 1925 Tamara part with mother and daughter to Italy to study the classics. In Milan know the count Emanuele Castelbarco, owner of Gallery Bottega di poesia, who organized his first solo exhibition. During his time in Italy knows Gabriele D'Annunzio, which want to do a portrait. In the following years, become a successful painter, intensifies its participation in exhibitions in Paris.
In 1928 divorced her husband and soon binds to Baron Kuffner, whom he married in 1933. After a profound existential crisis, the artist begins to paint subjects of pietistic and humanitarian content. He loved but also really portray herself, as in the famous "self portrait" of 1925 where it was, beautiful, seductive, rich and bored, on board a luxury green Bugatti roaring twenties style, similar to the character of Daisy created by the imagination of the American writer f. s. Fitzgerald in "the Great Gatsby". In the summer of 1939 the spouses Kuffner leave for New York, where Tamara is organizing a solo exhibition at the Gallery of Paul Reinhardt. Despite its numerous humanitarian efforts, she continues to prepare exhibitions in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. After a long period of silence, in 1957 he presented his new works in Rome at the Galleria Sagittarius.
The artist creates in these years a series of abstract compositions, followed by spatula paintings which do not meet critical acclaim. The exhibition, held in 1962, at the Galleria Jolas in New York is a failure. After her husband's death in November of that year, Tamara leaves New York and moved to Houston, where he lives the daughter Kizette. In 1969 returned to Paris and resumed painting. A major retrospective, held at the Galerie du Luxembourg (1972), refers to the success the elderly painter. In 1978 Tamara De Lempicka moved to Mexico, in Cuernavaca, where he died on March 18, 1980. According to his will and Testament his ashes are scattered over the crater of the volcano Popocatépetl.
Article contributed by the team of collaborators.