Tamara de Lempicka's First American Retrospective Open This Fall

Tamara de Lempicka’s Revolutionary Art To Be Exhibited in First U.S. Retrospective

Tamara de Lempicka (1894-1980)“Young Girl in Green (Young Girl with Gloves)

“Young Girl in Green (Young Girl with Gloves)” by Tamara de Lempicka. ca. 1931 (Photo: © 2024 Tamara de Lempicka Estate, LLC / ADAGP, Paris / ARS, NY Digital image © CNAC/MNAM, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, NY)

Nothing represents the opulence of the 1920s quite like Tamara de Lempicka‘s art. Her Art Deco-style portraits of women exemplify newfound female independence during the “Roaring Twenties,” and now, for the first time, a major retrospective of her art is coming to the United States.

Opening this October at the de Young, part of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Tamara de Lempicka brings together over 120 works. These not only include her avant-garde portraits, which combine classical and modern sensibilities, but also features rare drawings and experimental still-lifes.

The exhibition unfolds over four sections marked by her changing identity: “Tamara Rosa Hurwitz” (her newly revealed birth name), “Monsieur Łempitzky,” “Tamara de Lempicka,” and “Baroness Kuffner.” This allows visitors to follow Lempicka as her life evolved from her childhood in Poland to her move to St. Petersburg, where she married a prominent Polish lawyer named Tadeusz Łempicki. The couple later fled the Russian Revolution to Paris. While they later divorced and Lempicka later married Baron Raoul Kuffner de Dioszegh, she continued using her first husband's name to sign her art.

The portraits on display also constitute a look at her life, as they are filled with influential figures. Paintings of her daughter and husbands are mixed with the muses and lovers who were also dear to Lempicka. These personal paintings are mixed with images of the European and American elite who commissioned work by the artist.

“The combination of varied artistic influences in Europe during the interwar period constitute the ingredients for Lempicka’s unique visual language, a captivating and unique blend of classicism and modernism,” explains Gioia Mori, exhibition co-curator, professor of Contemporary Art History, and leading Lempicka scholar.

The exhibition will also celebrate the unique role of fashion in Lempicka's art. Garments from the 1920s and 1930s present in the museum's costume and textile collection demonstrate the new, modern vision of women that was also folded into her bold paintings.

“Beyond celebrating Lempicka’s Art Deco persona, Tamara de Lempicka will reveal the artist’s layered artistic influences, demonstrating how her appreciation and knowledge of European art history informed the deliberate design process behind her memorable paintings,” shares Furio Rinaldi, exhibition co-curator and curator in charge of the Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.

Tamara de Lempicka runs from October 12, 2024, to February 9, 2025, at the de Young. The exhibition will then travel to Houston and be on display at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, from March 9 through May 26, 2025.

Tamara de Lempicka is the first retrospective exhibition of the artist's work in the United States.

“Portrait of Ira P.” by Tamara de Lempicka

Her Art Deco-style portraits of women exemplify newfound female independence during the “Roaring Twenties.”

“Tamara de Lempicka working on “Portrait of Tadeusz de Łempicki””, ca. 1929. (Photo: Thérèse Bonney © The Regents of the University of California, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley. Source : Ville de Paris / Bibliothèque historique)