Tamara de Lempicka
Thinking by Tamara de Lempicka
Circa 1928

Name: Thinking by Tamara de Lempicka
Brand: Tamara de Lempicka
Rating: 5 (4 reviews)

$39,850

£30,213.89

€35,273.30

CA$56,981.61

A$57,860.15

CHF 33,029.67

MX$699,141.33

NOK 387,987.36

SEK 386,928.79

DKK 263,696.15

About the Item

Tamara De Lempicka 1898-1980 Polish Thinking Signed “Lempicka”(bottom right) Pencil on paper This enchanting pencil on paper by Tamara de Lempicka radiates Art Deco's signature blend of elegance and modernity, a movement that Lempicka defined in her esteemed career. This composition, entitled Thinking, displays Lempicka’s superb draftsmanship and her talent for capturing the essence of alluring femininity. With fluid lines and bold minimalism, Lempicka confidently portrays a woman deeply immersed in thought while in a languid seated pose. Even without the facial features, Lempicka evokes a sense of introspection and sensuality, emphasizing the contours of the body to convey the subject's emotional depth and physical presence. Her talent seamlessly merges various modern art movements and design principles, capturing the streamlined sophistication of modern architecture with the more avant-garde nature of her fellow painters. This anonymous nude offers a rare glimpse into Lempicka’s unique vision as well as her fascinating artistic process. Born in Poland in 1898, Lempicka’s life was marked by constant movement. At the beginning of the Russian Revolution, Tamara’s life was turned upside down, and she fled to Paris, where she found refuge for twenty years. Building on a love of art that began during a visit to Italy in her youth, Lempicka enrolled in Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Paris to study painting. Under the mentorship of famed avant-garde artists Maurice Denis and André Lhote, who introduced her to Cubism, Lempicka began exhibiting avant-garde art in Parisian salons in 1922. Lempicka won first prize at the Exposition Internationale des Beaux-Arts in 1927 with her iconic Cubist-Art Deco style, a year before this drawing was made. With a resurgence of appreciation for the Art Deco period beginning in the 1960s, combined with the upcoming first major museum retrospective exhibition of her work in the United States at the de Young in San Francisco, Lempicka’s work is reaching new heights of acclaim in recent decades. Much of her work resides in collections worldwide, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Musée des Beaux-Arts du Havre and the National Museum Warsaw, to name a few. Not only did Lempicka flout gender expectations by establishing a successful career as a fine artist and defying traditional artistic trends, but she also created a distinctive genre found only in her oeuvre. Circa 1928 Paper: 9 7/8" high x 7 3/4" wide (25.08 x 19.69 cm) Frame: 17 3/4" high x 15" wide x 1 1/8" deep (43.82 x 38.10 x 2.86 cm) Provenance: By descent, from the artist

Creator:
Tamara de Lempicka (1898 - 1980, Polish)
Creation Year:
Circa 1928
Dimensions:
Height: 17.25 in (43.82 cm)Width: 15 in (38.1 cm)Depth: 1.13 in (2.88 cm)
Medium:
Paper,Pencil
Movement & Style:
Art Deco
Period:
20th Century
Condition:
Gallery Location:
New Orleans, LA
Reference Number:
Seller: 31-96091stDibs: LU18615682332

Shop All Tamara de Lempicka

Tamara de Lempicka

Described by one of her earliest collectors as the “first pop star of the century,” Tamara de Lempicka created colorful paintings that radiate with Art Deco's signature blend of elegance and modernity.

Born in Poland at the turn of the 20th century, Lempicka was forced to flee to France in 1918 after the beginning of the Russian Revolution. During a visit to Italy in her youth, she became enraptured by the Italian Old Masters. Inspired by this formative experience, Lempicka enrolled in Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Paris to take up painting.

Lempicka studied under famed avant-garde artists Maurice Denis and André Lhote, who introduced her to Cubism, and she began exhibiting at the Parisian salons as early as 1922. Lempicka became a fixture in Parisian high society, spending much of her time hosting wealthy elites in her atelier on Rue Méchain.

Exceptional floral still-lifes by Lempicka epitomize the artist's talent for capturing sensual beauty, no matter her chosen subject or style. During the early 1960s, works such as Le bouquet de lilas (Bouquet of Lilacs) show how she masterfully used color and texture to create a remarkable sense of depth in her still-life paintings. Ever the adventurer, Lempicka began exploring new painting techniques even at this mature stage of her career. She used her palette knife as one of her main implements, creating new textures and ways of directly applying color in her works.

With a resurgence of appreciation for the Art Deco period, combined with the success of her retrospective at Galerie de Luxembourg in 1971, Lempicka’s work has achieved remarkable acclaim in recent decades. Much of her work resides in museums worldwide, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Musée des Beaux-Arts du Havre, and the National Museum Warsaw, among others.

Alain Blondel, the esteemed French author who compiled the artist’s catalogue raisonné, wrote fondly of Lempicka’s uniqueness: “Tamara de Lempicka will always continue to defy categorization. Her art and her life destiny do not fit into the usual framework for 20th-century artists. The idea that art could be a profession was foreign to Lempicka. Her life and her painting were too closely intertwined for that.”

Find original Tamara de Lempicka art for sale on 1stDibs.

(Biography provided by M.S. Rau)

Materials

Screen

A Finely Drawn 1930s Modern Art Deco Figure Study, Seated Female Nude Model

By Harold Haydon

Located in Chicago, IL

A Finely Drawn, 1930s Modern Figure Study of a Seated Female Nude Model by Notable Chicago Artist, Harold Haydon (Am. 1909-1994). An early charcoal drawing by Haydon demonstrating ...

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