Tamara Lempicka, La Belle Rafaela

color serigraphy, paper, 64 x 90.5 cm, ed. 162/195; stamp: HONOR DUX BEQUOR/©SPADEM/TAMARA de LEMPICKA; inscribed p.d: 162/195 The work has a certificate of authenticity from the artist's daughter Baroness Kizette de Lempicka

Artist of Polish origin, painter, representative of art déco. Place of birth so far is conflicting, sources mention Moscow and Warsaw. She came from a wealthy merchant family. In 1917 she married Tadeusz Lempicki, a lawyer. After the February Revolution of 1917, she moved to Paris.

She studied at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière and the Académie Ransom under Maurice Denis. A major influence on her later painting was her collaboration with André Lhote, who introduced her to the world of Cubist forms. She was a favorite of Parisian salons and the number of commissions for portraits, landscapes and nudes forced her to work up to a dozen hours a day. She drew inspiration from the paintings of such masters as Poussin, Ingres, Tiepolo and Botticelli. In 1934, she remarried Baron Roul Kuffner.

A year before World War II, she moved to the United States. The 1940s were a time of great triumph overseas. She portrayed Hollywood movie stars and financiers.

In Tamara Lempicka's work we find a fascination with academic classicism. Sharp, broken drawing, close frames and precise finishing are the hallmarks of her paintings.

The artist's paintings can be found in many private collections, including those of Madonna, Jack Nicholson and Barbra Streisand, as well as in museums in Poland and abroad. Tamara Lempicka died in Mexico in the city of Cuernavaca.