Tamara Lempicka (1894 Moscow - 1980 Cuernavaca, Mexico), "Woman in a Red Turban," circa 1956

Literature
Alain Blondel, Tamara De Lempicka: Catalogue Raisonne 1921-1979, Lausanne: Acatos, 1999, cat. no. A.218

Biography
Polish painter whose work is cited as the quintessence of the art deco style in painting. As a young rich girl, she studied at a boarding school in Lausanne, from where she traveled to Italy - she visited Rome, Florence, Venice - where she became fascinated by the paintings of the Renaissance masters. During World War I she lived in St. Petersburg, where she married a young lawyer Tadeusz Lempicki. In 1918, the couple settled in Paris. Lempicka then began studying painting at the Academie de la Grand Chaumiere and at the Academie Ranson under Maurice Denis and Andrea Lothe. She exhibited her paintings in salons and Paris galleries. She painted mainly portraits and nudes, mainly of wealthy or beautiful people. In 1928, she visited Warsaw three times, with an exhibition of her works at Warsaw's Zachęta Gallery; she also showed her two paintings at the General National Exhibition in Poznań. In 1939, she moved to the United States and settled in New York, spending the last years of her life in Mexico. "Lempicka's portraits, nudes and still lifes are a perfect realization of the art deco style: the type, costume, hairstyle and posing of the model are all subordinated to it, as are all the background props and, finally, the manner of painting. Post-cubist stylization: emphasizing with drawing and light the three-dimensionality and hardness of forms, sharpness of color, smoothness of metallic, shiny surfaces, monumentalization, mannerism of shots and enamel precision of finishing make up Lempicka's style, perfectly in keeping with the aesthetics of the 1920s." - Agnieszka Morawińska