Posted on 02/08/2002 1:30:57 PM PST by MarkWar
"With her couture clothes and movie-star good looks (she was frequently mistaken for Greta Garbo), Tamara de Lempicka seemed too glamorous to be a serious painter. Even in the years of her greatest success, 1925 to 1935, the luscious colors and highly wrought finishes of her portraits--a suspect genre in any case to high modernists--linked Lempicka more closely to the Italian Renaissance painters she revered than to her cubist contemporaries. She was labeled an "Art Deco artist," someone whose work was more decorative than substantive. Feminist scholar Laura Claridge, a good guide despite her overuse of the phrase "gender politics," enhances readers' appreciation of Lempicka's work without scanting her enjoyably lurid personal life. Born (around 1895) in Russia of Polish and Jewish descent, Lempicka fled the revolution to set up shop in Paris during its avant-garde heyday; the Nazi threat sent her to America, where Hollywood proved a natural setting. Two husbands, one daughter, male and female lovers, manic-depressive illness--nothing ever really cramped her style or her dedication to art. She died in 1980, a venerable survivor still looking forward rather than back. Blending art history with psychological analysis, Claridge helps readers understand why this gifted painter, although commercially successful, has not enjoyed the critical respect she deserves." --Wendy Smith
"I live on the fringe of society and the rules of normal society have no currrency for those on the fringe."
Tamara de Lempick
La belle Polonaise
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How many of the people on the fringes of our society could produce stuff like this?
Mark W.
Somehow I'm not surprised about her background but I am surprised to find she died in California as recently as 1980.
Click on thumbnails for full-sized images.
Here's another that you might enjoy: Life, Art and Times of TAMARA DeLEMPICKA
Yes, I agree!
When she was a young woman, well known but not yet famous, an up-and-coming painter -- at the time she claimed to be 27 but a catty woman said she looked to be 35 -- she made arrangements to stay with some old European aristocrat who was famous for his "conquests" of beautiful women, and famous for being able to "make" people by recommending them and just be associated with them. Her idea was she would paint his portrait and it would put her firmly on the social scene. His idea was he would make her and then let her paint his portrait as a kind of quid pro quo.
Anyway, she gets to this guy's huge mansion and a 17 year old ballerina is already staying there along with a couple of live in girl friends who work as house keeper and maid. (It is the chamber maid/mistress who later detailed the events.) Tamara describes the old guy as something like an old gnome in a uniform. But she understands the give-and-take. So, she parties with this guy. She cuddles with this guy. She does everything but actual train-in-the-tunnel stuff. (The old guy details his adventures and frustrations to his other mistresses, who wrote about it in their memoirs so we know what happened.) But Tamara tells him she still expects to paint his portrait...
After a few days of this, he kicks her out. She never has sex with the guy, and never gets to paint his portrait.
One of the books about her life observes something like, "These people were too intelligent to let this comedy turn into a drama. So the 'affair' played itself out as a farce." (He would eventually send her a fancy topaz ring which she kept for the rest of her life...)
Those were interesting times. There was cynicism and manipulation all around, but even people in the thick of it sometimes maintained something like a bit of character. Way different from today. In today's world, a similar story would have ended with somebody's blood all over. Or somebody's body gone "missing."
We can look at these beautiful paintings (and even read some of these silly stories) and think, well, in a way, it would have been fun to be on those "fringes" and mixing & mingle with those people. But who the heck would want to be on the fringes of our society -- who'd want to mix & mingle with people like, well, Condit or OJ or Hillary...
Mark W.
I actually pulled the images for this thread from what I thought as an art gallery, but it turns out to be a "tribute page" put up by an obscure Canadian band that loves Lempicka.
Here is the link to their gallery: Paloma's Tamara de Lempicka Gallery (There's a nice selection, and the pictures expand to a reasonable size along with text comments)
My favorite is (The Orange Turban 1945; Musee des Beaux-Arts, Le Havre):
Here is a link to the band's home page: Paloma, the band (I have no idea what they sound like. The liner notes sound like a jazz thing...)
Paloma's lead singer, "Coco":
Mark W.
Mark W.
Mark W.
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