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From October 5, 2018, until February 24, 2019, you can visit the exhibition Tamara de Lempicka. Art Deco’s Queen at the Gaviria Palace in Madrid. It doesn’t matter whether she was an Art Deco, Neoclassical, or Post-Cubist artist, it’s that clear Tamara Lempicka (1989-1980) made a name for herself within a cosmopolitan audience who found an innovative reflection in her work. She pioneered a new approach to the woman’s ideal, one that challenged the limits and preconceptions imposed upon life and art. De Lempicka is an icon of her time, and her work is inseparable of a lifestyle that demanded a new order and new rules. She was modern, elegant, excessive, and glamorous.
Art Deco’s Icon
De Lempicka lived in the Post-Freud, Post-Schiele, and Post-Klimt era in Europe; the era of jazz and Charleston, of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Great Gatsby, the Chrysler Building, and the Radio City Hall; the Art Deco of the 20s: a classic style with geometric motifs, rectilinear and symmetrical, full of bold and vibrant colors.
Decorative Art reached its highest point between the years 1925 and 1930, and took inspiration from avant-garde movements like the Bauhaus, Cubism, and Futurism. It’s hard to classify Tamara de Lempicka’s work into one specific category, it presents traditional elements from Art Deco, but one can easily recognize the influence of Synthetic Cubism and other movements from the early 20th-Century. She combined the classical portrait with propaganda posters, advertising, and photographic lighting techniques, and images of big cities architecture.
Tamara de Lempicka, Pure Modernity
The artist didn’t just paint portraits of modern women; she lived like one of them. She painted herself at the wheel of an emerald green Bugatti, a work where the power of the automobile is as important as her figure. In this painting, she seems defiant with her strong and penetrating eyes, asserting herself and advocating for a leap forward.
Her paintings aren’t only shown at galleries and museums; they’re used as covers for books and fashion magazines. Her inspiration reaches even today’s artists. That’s why Tamara de Lempicka’s legacy is still alive and going beyond the limits of history and art, influencing the fields of literature, fashion, and photography.
Exhibition: Tamara de Lempicka. Reina del Art Decó, from October 5, 2018 to February 24, 2019
Curator: Gioia Mori
Photography: Oscar Rivilla
Music: Dr. Symptosizer Torgeir Wergeland
Conceptual Design: Carolina Verd
Stylism: in collaboration with Carolina Omaña
Hair and makeup: Blas Moreno
Location: Art Deco Gallery, Madrid
Fashion:
Jewelry by Catalina D´Anglade
Main picture: pink dress by Blas Moreno
Picture two: mustard-coloured dress de Blas Moreno
Picture three: green dress by Blas Moreno
Carolina Verd 