Tamara Łempicka

Tamara Łempicka (1898–1980) is one of those artists whose work crossed the boundary from serious art to popular culture. As a high school student in the early 1970s in Canada, I saw a somewhat experimental play in which her artwork was used for the stage decorations, which proves the surprising popularity of her work. On the serious side, she is often enough recalled by scholars who offer insights into her art along the lines of the critical approaches they represent, such as in a recent exploration of her work from the perspective of gender studies.1Over the years her work has been reproduced in numerous books and magazines, among other places, and it can be viewed in museums in Europe, the Americas, as well as in her native Poland. In March 2022, a major exhibition of her work was organized at the National Museum in Lublin, with among other institutions the assistance of the Tamara De Lempicka Estate. Her works were drawn from numerous museums, in the country and outside of it, obviously with her best known pieces on display, such as Autoportrait (Tamara in a Green Bugatti) or Woman in a Blue Dress, to name a couple. There were also many other works demonstrating the various stages of her development and range as an artist. Besides her paintings and works numerous photographs were exhibited, featuring her person and her times, together with period pieces, such as porcelain, and so on. The works of some of her mentors were also displayed.Born at the turn of the century, already in the 1920s Tamara Łempicka had moved her mature art into an area of the avante guarde that came to be known as Art Deco and created some of her most recognizable works within more or less a decade. What gives this style depth, according to Artur Winiarski, one of the art historians involved in the exhibition, “was a conscious formal dialogue with historical styles” (p. 35). Renaissance masters and Florentine mannerists were of particular interest to her and she often studied them during her frequent trips to Italy.The exhibition has attracted crowds, but for many of the visitors the above knowledge was likely not so important as the works themselves. Art historian and former curator of a number of museums Julian Spalding rather provocatively insists “you don't need to know artistic styles, schools and techniques to enjoy and understand art.”2 An “imaginative leap” into the minds of the artists is the key. This is certainly facilitated in the case of such an oeuvre as Lempicka's by its expressive nature. Her friend and futurist artist Enrico Prampolini perceptively suggested her portrait and figure painting drew upon her desire to “exalt the plasticity of the human figure in the most intimate and profound expressions and to capture the most expressive features of physical beauty” (p. 29). This is largely evident to a viewer with any degree of imaginative sensitivity.The exhibition in Lublin had lengthy write-ups for each piece in both Polish and English, and the catalogue Tamara Łempicka: Kobieta w podróży / A Woman on a Journey, as the title suggests, is also in both languages. Poland usually has many visitors, so a significant number of international visitors was no doubt expected by the organizers. If so, these plans were partially stymied by the fact that the exhibition largely coincided with the war in Ukraine, and as a neighboring country the number of foreign visitors dropped significantly within it. No doubt the situation also had an effect on how the exhibition was viewed by a number of Poles, who were understandably in a more reflective mood.One piece that likely struck those visitors in a more serious mood is the oil painting Mother Superior from 1935. About that time Łempicka experienced a period of depression and entered a religious monastery in Nantes. The life of a religious order was not for her, so she soon left—nevertheless fortunately cured of depression—but first she painted a portrait of the head of the monastery. It is a profound work and a personal favorite of the artist. As Łempicka herself put it: “The suffering of the whole world was reflected on her face” (p. 31). Interestingly, besides its reproduction in the catalogue, there follows a two-page photograph of the artist together with Salvador Dali in a New York gallery with the painting behind them (pp. 32–33). The year is 1941. Needless to say, Dali's surrealism also has a popular appeal and is quite distinct. But in 1951 he likewise created an unusual painting inspiring deeper reflection, namely Christ of Saint John of the Cross. It would obviously be too much to say Łempicka inspired the Spanish painter, but in both cases the artists departed a considerable distance from their earlier work to create a significant painting reflecting perhaps the deepest level of our humanity.Łempicka's art is quite playful at one level and that no doubt contributed to its long lasting popularity. But not far beneath the glamorous surface a surprisingly deep humanism rewards the viewer. And this also likely made the exhibition so worthwhile for a good many visitors

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