Tamara de Lempicka’s famed portrait of her lover Rafaëla is going to auction in a matter of days. This auction signifies another step on the upward curve of the artist’s market arc. Dubbed the “Baroness with a Brush,” de Lempicka has charmed the art world. Her beautiful, unique, and adventurous work has garnered the attention of collectors internationally. The attention around this auction will be enormous, particularly with her record of achieving the highest prices for her artworks.
Tamara de Lempicka was born Tamara Rosalia Gurwik-Gorska in 1898 in Warsaw, Poland. She has ascended to become an emblematic figure in the art world. Following her parents’ divorce, she moved to St Petersburg to live with her affluent aunt. It was during this time that she found her love of luxury and a beautifully curated world. That fascination would later inform her unique artistic voice. At age 18, de Lempicka married Tadeusz Lempicki. The outbreak of the Russian Revolution threw their lives into chaos, driving them to make an extremely hurried escape to Paris.
Having made her splash in the lively Parisian art world, de Lempicka divorced Tadeusz. She then married Baron Raoul Kuffner, who commissioned her to do a portrait of his mistress. Her relationship with the upper crust never failed to stoke her development as an artist. She became known for her bold portrayals of women, particularly nudes that exuded confidence and self-assuredness.
Rafaëla, a young Jewish sex worker, would go on to be one of de Lempicka’s most famous muses. The two met in Bois de Boulogne, where their romance quickly developed. Their tumultuous relationship sparked some of her most lauded creations, perhaps most notably the award-winning 1927 painting, La Belle Rafaëla. Critics and scholars have lauded this piece as “one of the most remarkable nudes of the century” and “the highest achievement of the painter’s career.”
De Lempicka described Rafaëla as “the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.” She recounted the moment they first met:
“Huge black eyes, beautiful sensual mouth, beautiful body. I stop her and say to her: ‘Mademoiselle, I’m a painter and I would like you to pose for me. Would you do this?’ She says: ‘Yes. Why not?’”
This meeting would prove to be the starting point of an unforgettable stage in de Lempicka’s life and artistic career. Her ability to portray female nudes from a woman’s perspective made her revolutionary during a time when the narrative of art was predominantly male-oriented. Art critic André Zlattinger wrote in 1930 that de Lempicka’s point of view was revolutionarily new and young.
In the past 20 years, Tamara de Lempicka’s market has experienced a significant increase. Her auction record is £16.3 million, set in February 2020 for her work Portrait of Marjorie Ferry. Early admirers and collectors of her work included A-list stars such as Madonna, Barbra Streisand, Jack Nicholson and designer Wolfgang Joop. Their creative curiosity only deepens her canonization in today’s culture.
When World War II erupted, de Lempicka and Rafaëla fled to Hollywood. There, she successively mesmerized the stars of Tinseltown and rode a wave of overwhelming stardom. Propelled by their time in California, their mythmaking produced the legend of her life and work. Later in her life, de Lempicka moved to Cuernavaca, Mexico, where she lived until her death in 1980.