Tamara de Limpicka

Fig. 1: Limpicka 1929. Auto Portrait. 

An influential woman artist in her time, and today. Staged art, both sumptuous and full of finery.  


Tamara was born into wealthy Polish life that was riddled with opposition in her youth.  Her painting sometimes labeled as 'soft cubism' she determined her technique would be 'novel, clean, precise, and elegant.' She found favor with the wealthy, the royals, and Hollywood, fell out of fashion and full circle back into it before her death  (Tamara-de-lempicka.org 2017). 

What inspires me:  Her boldness.  I'm not too impressed with her continual push for her excessive social life, especially at the neglect of her daughter or family.  But looking at her rough upbringing it's hard to judge. He daughter Kizette did return to care for her in her last days so that shows all family ties weren't completely severed but her life to me seemed a bit hollow with a continual search for satisfaction.

I like find her color pallets very effective: 

"The painter builds her canvases using a full range of greys in which one colour becomes the ‘actor’, as it were, dominating the work: an emerald green, a true blue, a soft pink or bright magenta, a fiery orange or a strong red, " (Railing 2005).

In my work I also like to have just one, or two colors dominate the work.  I also like here painterly finish which referred to above as 'clean' and 'precise.'  Though not well known for it- her art does have an edge of surrealism and seems beyond her time.  

Fig. 2: Slade 2018. 

Figure 1. Tamara de LIMPICKA. 1929. Auto Portrait. Available at: https://www.artsy.net/artwork/tamara-de-lempicka-auto-portrait [accessed 16 March 2020].
Figure 2. Bren SLADE. 2018. Available at: www.brenslade.com


RAILING, Patricia. 2005. ‘Exhibitions, Museums and Galleries: “Tamara de Lempicka Art Deco Icon”’. Art Book 12(1), [online], 17–8. Available at: http://search.proquest.com/docview/880382804/.[accessed 16 March 2020].

Tamara-de-lempicka.org. 2017. [online] Available at: https://www.tamara-de-lempicka.org/biography.html [accessed 16 March 2020].