ArtExhibition: Tamara de Lempicka

This is the first retrospective exhibition dedicated to Tamara de Lempicka in Madrid, and it includes around 200 pieces from more than 40 private collections, museums and providers.

The Polish girl by Tamara de Lempicka – 1933 (Cheryl and Philip Milstein)

The exhibition presents a careful contextualisation of Lempicka’s artistic career through an immersive experience. All the rooms are decorated with déco objects and it’s beautiful to see how her paintings dialogue with the furniture, lamps, vases, stained glass, photographs and vintage recordings. It’s a unique experience! This exhibition is curated by Gioia Mori. She has devoted a decade to the study of Lempicka’s works.

Suzanne Bathing by Tamara de Lempicka – 1938 (Private European Collection)

The exhibition recreates the professional trajectory of the Polish artist and helped the visitant to understand in all complexity the works as well as to reconstruct the most unknown aspects of the artist’s biography.

Bouquet of Hortensias and Lemons by Tamara de Lempicka – c.1922
(Prof. M. Kaufman, Principality of Monaco)

It is like a journey throughout the evolution of Lempicka’s work and biography: her life in Paris, her relationship with fashion, her still lives (one of her favourite themes, but that not many people know), paintings on the “mother and child” subject, the portrait of Spanish king Alfonso XIII, her studies of the Italian and Belgian masters, and her liberal vision of love (as she never hid her affairs with women) and some of her masterpieces that are inspired in her relationships with women.

The exhibition presents a large number of Lempicka’s nudes in which is possible to appreciate the evolution of her unique style. In those from early 20’s is evident her study of the ancient masters and in those from the middle of the decade her style evolved to a study of light and shadow that is closer to photography, this is visible in her La belle Rafaella (1927). In these works, the figure of women is presented as objects of desire.

What I loved the most of the whole exhibition was the opportunity to know other aspects of her work like her still lives and especially, her drawings.