(1898-1980)


Tamara de Lempicka is best known for her Art Deco-styled portraits. Sexy, bedroom-eyed women in stylish dress are rendered in haunting poses. Perhaps it was her own dramatic life mirrored in her art. Married twice to wealthy, she moved from her native Poland to Russia, and then to Paris. In 1918, she studied painting at the Academe de la Grand Chaumiere, and was privately tutored by Maurice Denis. In 1925 she exhibited her works at the first Art Deco show in Paris. She moved to America in 1939 with her second husband, Baron Raoul Kuffner. Her works appeared exclusively at many galleries and museums, but her artistic output decreased. In 1960 she changed her style to abstract art and began creating works with a spatula. After her husband died in 1962 she ceased painting and moved to Mexico.