Go to Tamara de Lempicka’s First U.S. Retrospective in San Francisco This October — Colossal



Artwork

#artwork historical past
#portray
#portraits
#Tamara de Lempicka

Practically 100 years after Tamara de Lempicka (1894-1980) first exhibited her work in San Francisco, a sweeping survey of the storied and glamorous artist opens once more within the metropolis. This October, on the de Younger—a part of the Tremendous Arts Museums of San Francisco—the present marks the artist’s first U.S. retrospective and illuminates new particulars about her life.

de Lempicka’s daring, stylized figures have change into synonymous with the Nineteen Twenties, an period characterised by opulence, sophistication, and youthful optimism. She incorporates Artwork Deco design components, like geometric aspects, tonal contrasts, and metropolis structure framing idealized faces and flowing, trendy clothes. She sought to create recognizable work with a freshness and readability that set them other than what she known as the “banality” of artwork she noticed round her. And amongst different Artwork Deco-era painters like Diego Rivera or Rockwell Kent, who typically painted giant murals that includes crowds of individuals, de Lempicka distinguished herself by focusing predominantly on portraits.

The artist’s youth has lengthy been a supply of fascination. For years, she was thought to have been born Tamara Rozalia Gurwik-Górska in 1894—though she claimed variously that she was born in 1898, 1900, and 1902—however current analysis reveals her start title was Tamara Rosa Hurwitz. She moved to Saint Petersburg, the place she married a distinguished Polish lawyer named Tadeusz Łempicki, after which traveled to Paris, the place she studied portray. “Initially of her profession, de Lempicka selected to signal her works utilizing the male declination of her surname, ‘Lempitzky,’ successfully disguising her gender and including to the confusion surrounding her origin story,” says an exhibition assertion.

By 1928, de Lempicka had change into the mistress of Baron Raoul Kuffner de Dioszegh, a rich artwork collector, and he or she divorced from Łempicki in 1931. When Kuffner’s spouse died, the artist married Kuffner, and he or she turned recognized within the press as “The Baroness with a Brush.” The couple moved to the U.S. in 1939, and though her work fell out of vogue throughout World Battle II, a Nineteen Sixties revival of Artwork Deco type ushered in a comeback. She ultimately moved to Mexico in 1974, the place she died in 1980.

Greater than 120 of de Lempicka’s works will go on view in San Francisco, together with her most celebrated portraits, early experimental nonetheless lifes, not often seen drawings, and a number of Artwork Deco objects from the Tremendous Arts Museums’ assortment. Tamara de Lempicka runs October 12, 2024, to February 9, 2025, after which it should journey to the Museum of Tremendous Arts, Houston, from March 9 to Might 25. Discover extra on the de Younger’s web site.

“Brilliance (Bacchante)” (c. 1932), oil on panel, 14 1/4 x 10 5/8 inches. Picture courtesy of Rowland Weinstein, Weinstein Gallery, San Francisco

“Portrait of a Man (Thadeusz Łempicki) or Unfinished Portrait of a Man,” (1928), oil on canvas, 51 x 31 7/8 inches. Picture courtesy of Centre Pompidou, Paris

“Arums” (1935), oil on canvas, 25 7/8 x 19 3/8 inches. Picture courtesy of Centre Pompidou, Paris

“Irene and Her Sister” (1925), oil on canvas, 57 1/2 x 35 1/16 inches. Picture courtesy of Irena Hochman Tremendous Artwork Ltd., New York

“Saint-Moritz” (1929), oil on panel, 13 3/4 x 10 5/8 inches. Picture courtesy of Musée des Beaux-Arts d’Orléans, © Banque d’Photos, ADAGP / Artwork Useful resource, NY

“Portrait of Ira P.” (1930), oil on panel, 39 3/8 x 25 9/16 inches. Picture © 1969 Christie’s Photos Restricted

Thérèse Bonney, “Tamara de Lempicka engaged on ‘Portrait of Tadeusz de Łempicki’” (c. 1929), gelatin silver print, 9 3/8 x 7 inches. Picture © The Regents of the College of California, The Bancroft Library, College of California, Berkeley

#artwork historical past
#portray
#portraits
#Tamara de Lempicka

Do tales and artists like this matter to you? Turn out to be a Colossal Member in the present day and help unbiased arts publishing for as little as $5 monthly. You may join with a group of like-minded readers who’re keen about up to date artwork, learn articles and newsletters ad-free, maintain our interview sequence, get reductions and early entry to our limited-edition print releases, and rather more. Be a part of now!