Collection(s) : Series 2.0 , Basic art
Paru le 17/03/2017 | Relié sous jaquette 95 pages
Tout public
english translation Michael Scuffil
Freewheeling
Tamara de Lempicka, icon of Art Deco
Tamara de Lempicka (1896-1980) lived art in the fast lane. With an appetite for glamour and fame as much as Left Bank bohemianism, she fled her native Russia after the Bolshevik revolution and set about taking Paris by storm. Her prolific, monumental oeuvre remains one of the most vivid visual documents of 1920s Art Deco.
De Lempicka's style deployed cool colours and tight, post-cubist forms into an at once neoclassical and voluptuous figuration. Her subjects are often nude and always sensual, aloof and powerful. Bedecked in seductive light and textures, they command our attention but typically avert their gazes with an attitude of haughty grandeur. They include depictions of both high-society patrons and progressive portraits of emancipated and lesbian women, such as Women Bathing and Portrait of Suzy Solidor.
Through some of de Lempicka's finest, most compelling portraits, this introduction explores the artists unique visual language and its privileged place not only in the annals of interwar art but also in the history of female artists and our collective consciousness of the Roaring Twenties.
« My goal was never to copy, but to create a new style with bright, luminous colours and to scent out the elegance in my models. »
- Tamara de Lempicka
Gilles Néret (1933-2005) was an art historian, journalist, writer and museum correspondent. He organized several art retrospectives in Japan and founded the SEIBU Museum and the Wildenstein Gallery in Tokyo. He directed art reviews such as L'Oeil and Connaissance des Arts and received the Élie Faure Prize in 1981 for his publications. His TASCHEN titles include Salvador Dalí : The Paintings, Matisse, and Erotica Universalis.
