De Lempicka

by Gilles Néret

As the Goddess of the Automobile Age, Tamara de Lempicka (1898-1980) stood at the centre of the sophisticated Paris art world of the Twenties and Thirties. Her love for beautiful women, elegant automobiles and the modern metropolis provided not only motifs for her pictures, but also influenced her artistic style.

Simultaneously with her career as artist, Tamara de Lempicka pioneered a new image of life on the screen, evident in the new, self-confident woman and the changing aspects of femininity and masculinity. The same sense of style was reflected in a futuristic cult of speed, domestic design forms promulgated by the Bauhaus, and the dandyism of a George Brummell. Tamara de Lempicka's best-known painting, Self-Portrait, or Tamara in a Green Bugatti, presents the artist as a female dandy brimming with cool elegance.

Whether as an Art-Deco artist, a post-Cubist or a Neoclasissist, de Lempicka struck the taste of a cosmopolitan (and wealthy) public that found its own image reflected in her work.

Genres: Art, Nonfiction, Biography, Reference, Art History, History, Art and Photography

96 pages, Hardcover

First published December 1, 1988

About the author

Gilles Néret (1933 - August 3, 2005) was a French art critic and historian, journalist and curator. He wrote extensively on the history of erotica.

He organized several art retrospectives in Japan and founded the SEIBU museum and the Wildenstein Gallery in Tokyo. He directed art reviews such as L’Oeil and Connaissance des Arts and received the Elie Faure Prize in 1981 for his publications. Since 1992, Néret was an editor for Taschen, for which he has written catalogues raisonnés of the works of Klimt and others, as well as the author of Erotica Universalis.

Reviews

[Luís · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tamara de Lempicka was a Polish-born painter active in Paris and the U.S. in the 1920s and 30s. She was born Tamara Gorska in Warsaw to a wealthy family and fled to Paris during the 1917 Russian Revolution. In 1916 she married Tadeusz Lempicki, a Russian lawyer and socialite, which initiated a lifestyle that would inform her body of work. While living in the French capital throughout the 1920s, she became an integral part of the bohemian scene and was acquainted with Pablo Picasso, Jean Cocteau, and André Gide. Fernand Léger's Cubism influences her paintings, but her streamlined and designed figuration sets her apart. These qualities give her work an Art Deco appeal, which she conveyed through her paintings of decadent celebrities and socialites. Her subject matter consisted of portraits, erotic nudes, and still lifes of calla lilies. She received considerable acclaim for her oeuvre and became a social celebrity, famed for her aloof attitude, her lavish parties, and her love affairs with both women and men. In 1939 she moved to the U.S. with her second husband, Baron Raoul Huffner, recreating her artistic and social success in Hollywood and New York. Today, her work is collected by many celebrities, including Madonna, Jack Nicholson, and Barbara Streisand. Lempicka died on March 18, 1980, in Cuernavaca, Mexico.

Source: http://www.artnet.com/artists/tamara-...

[Jonathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Either this was a book of complete genius or the author had lost the plot for most of it. I don't know, but either way it was an enjoyable speedy look at the life and work of this wonderful, strange and hugely talented artist.

[Katherine · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a good book to have. It will give you the big lines on both De Lempicka’s professional and personal lives. That being said, there isn’t THAT much on the artist to begin with. Most of her important 1920-1930s works are included (Kizette Reading is not - darn!). The spreads are not very big. I wish someone would publish an “ultimate” De Lempicka book, with All of her works printed on extra large pages along with her story. She deserves that.

[Quiver · Rating 4 out of 5]

Podroban pregled života i umetnosti Lempicke, daleko od suve biografije. Tekst je preplavljen interesantnim detaljima i anekdotama koji dočaravaju njenu ličnost i njen put kroz istoriju.

Retrospektivno gledano, privlačnost njenih dela se za mene sastojala iz nedokučivosti nekog pomalo nakaradnog naličja koje se da naslutiti u njenim slikama. Nakon ove knjige deo privlačnosti je nestao, dok je lik Lempicke za mene postao jasniji, komplikovaniji, zanimljiviji (mada ne i poštovaniji).

[Sophy H · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

Coffee table book, mostly pictures of and by Tamara de Lempicka.

Gives a brief overview of her life and works, at times felt it veered between being sycophantic and patronising.

Good visually though.

[Susan Liston · Rating 4 out of 5]

Taschen art books are always such nice quality. Although this is pretty small it has many good reproductions. The text...well, like so many art books it's strange blather for a lot of it. Towards the end it settles down and becomes biographical.

[B. Barron · Rating 3 out of 5]

A begrudging 3 stars.

Tamara de Lempicka's Art Deco art was Fabulous, and she was quite the character according to the book. Too bad the narrative style is a mess, but I will forgive it a bit because its author is a native French speaker. Still it just keeps missing the marks IMOP. Then again I guess I am just a plebeian schmuck - but I can live with that.

Going to have to find a better biography.

(Have to agree with her critics though, her attempt to reinvent herself in the '60s was awful. she certainly had technical skill, but the soul was missing.

[Sarah Fonseca · Rating 4 out of 5]

An informative read on Lempicka’s cubist-neoclassical compromise, not to mention a pearl-clutcher: I never knew that the zaftig model behind Beautiful Rafaela was Lempicka’s lover! Or that she staged a literal nude model open casting on UCLA’s campus for Susanna in the Bath.

However, the Baron’s fate is loose thread in this book-length essay. I wanted to read Nerét’s words on Myrto, Two Women on a Couch, Lempicka’s post-coital self-portrait that the Baron (a devoted patron) purchased and was subsequently stolen by Nazis during the ascent of WWII.

[Laura · Rating 1 out of 5]

Wish this had of been a picture book, text was ridiculous.

[Shirley Elizabeth · Rating 1 out of 5]

The worst commentary I have ever encountered in a book (ostensively) about art. Obtuse, salacious, misogynistic.

[Yoda · Rating 3 out of 5]

A so-and-so book

Any review to this book would have to start off by stating that it is part of Taschen Publishing's "Basic Arts" series. As such, it is relatively short at only 80 pages (a large portion of which consist of illustrations as opposed to text). Hence if one is looking for an in-depth academic tome on the subject this is not the book.

Having said that and gotten it out of the way, it needs to be stated that the best thing about the book is the quality of the illustrations. Absolutely gorgeous. Definitely not quality matching high-end museum books (i.e., $100 and above) but not far behind. All the more impressive considering this book's price range of around $10-$15. The illustrations of Lempicka's are absolutely stunning and, alone, make the book worth owning.

Another positive, in addition to the illustrations, is the biographic information we provide (albeit it is very brief). The reader learns that she seems to have come from an upper middle class Eastern European background, was very nihilist, free-spirited, materialist, class-oriented and was quite the sexual creature. However, other than the sexuality, there is little explanation linking these aspects of her life to her art.

The above are the positives of the book. Unfortunately, the book also has quite a few negatives. A minor one is the fact that it is very verbose. In a longer book this would not be a problem but in a short book where every word has to count this is. A more serious problem is that the book, unlike the better ones in the Taschen "Basic Art" series, provides nothing whatsoever on her technique. The Taschen books on Watteau and Vermeer, for example, describe Watteau's use of thick and quick brush strokes and Vermeer's use of the Camera Obscura.

The third and most serious problem is the book has practically no discussion of her "style". The only mention of how her art changed over time is when, as she was fading from fame, she moved to an "abstract" style. There is no discussion or analysis of how her art subtlety changed, within its own unique "style" from the 1920s through the 1960s. Additionally, there is no discussion of how it was influenced by other schools of art (New Objectivity, Futurist, etc.) or, vice-versa, how it influenced (or not) other schools or, even for that matter, other artists. This is especially a pity as the book is geared towards the novice as opposed to the knowledgeable or those with an intermediate level of knowledge on the subject.

In short, a three-star book.

[Logan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I respect what the author was trying to do here, but in my view it didn't quite pan out. He begins with a brief overview of the history and philosophy of Lempicka and her contemporaries, before transitioning into a biography. I would have preferred the roles be reversed, to have a synopsis of Lempicka's life and then a wider-ranging conversation of her actual art, but that's just me. Néret's chief transgression is that he writes with a prose that's normally reserved for the kind of art criticism of the first chapter of this book, only Néret extends this stylized writing to the biographical portions of the book. It makes for a read that's more confusing than enlightening. I'm probably reading too much into it – this is a coffee table book, you're not supposed to read into it at all – but why should that mean the author gets to evade criticism when the painter's work is open to it?

[Inés De Hueso · Rating 3 out of 5]

(3.5) Me gusta mucho este formato de libro muy equilibrado entre obra y biografía. Me hubiese gustado que el autor hubiese hablado más de la técnica de Lempicka, más que contar sus desventuras amorosas, pero me he ido de este libro conociendo a la artista, pintores nuevos y ganas de leer las memorias que escribió su hija.
Tamara de Lempicka fue una pintora de su tiempo, ¡sin duda!

[Sam Skold · Rating 4 out of 5]

After seeing the musical, I became so intrigued with Lempicka’s story so I sought this book out. It’s a nice short summary of her life, filled with vibrant images of her paintings. It’ll be nice to go back to when I want to view them from time to time.

[Iva · Rating 3 out of 5]

Beautiful in terms of design and, of course, illustrations, but the text vacillates between pompousness and prurience.

[Beelzefuzz · Rating 2 out of 5]

Wonderful artwork, terrible text.
Spends more time tabulating her lovers and suitors than on her work.

[Hesper · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rating for the illustrations; the text is a mess.

[Martika · Rating 3 out of 5]

5* to the amazing artworks and a wonderful figure of Tamara de Lempicka
2* to the horrible narration style

[Jess · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is very descriptive and the pictures are well set out and beautifully presented. I enjoyed learning about her and discovering a new artist that I enjoy immensely

[Bandit · Rating 4 out of 5]

My interest in De Lempicka's work was awaken after reading Last Nude. This book does a great job of not only providing biographical info, but also discussing her art and how it fitted the sociopolitical structure of the times. There are gorgeous reproductions throughout the book and even if you're not a fan of De Lempicka as an artist, you've got to admit she was a fascinating character. Recommended.

[Shelley Lincoln-gibbs · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are just not enough about Tamara, her genius, or neurotic, artistic self. She is my all time favorite artist and having written a few essays on her, it's good to get a full read on her life. She is hard to find books on solely based on her alone.

[Matthias Noch · Rating 4 out of 5]

Aus der sehr gelungenen Mischung eines sehr guten Querschnitts ihrer Bilder und biographischen Informationen mit Bezug auf ihre Entwicklung als Künstlerin entsteht ein gutes Verständnis für diese Künstlerin.

[Ashley Lindsay · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of those rare creatures that defines, and is defined by, the era.

[Jan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Prachtige schilderijen maar het beeld dat daar naar voren komt van de kunstenares is niet zo positief:arrogant,statusbelust, kortom egocentrisch.

[Alissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

a real biography of a fantasmo woman -- a time a place -- certain historical influences and context -- and a dynamo woman --- recommend

[Γιώργος Μπελαούρης · Rating 5 out of 5]

lovelovelove herrrr
i bought it just because it was taschen
i stayed for the art
i fell in love forever with the artist
such class, migod, much wow

[Pixie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating life and art.