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Tamara de
Lempicka
Tamara de
Lempicka (May 16, 1898 - March 18, 1980), born Maria
Górska in Warsaw, Poland, was a Polish Art Deco painter.
Born into a
wealthy and prominent family, her father was Boris
Gurwik-Gorski, a Polish lawyer, and her mother, the
former Malvina Decler, a Polish socialite. Maria was the
middle child with two siblings. She attended boarding
school in Lausanne, Switzerland, and spent the winter of
1911 with her grandmother in Italy and the French
Riviera, where she was treated to her first taste of the
Great Masters of Italian painting. In 1912, her parents
divorced and Maria went to live with her wealthy Aunt
Stefa in St. Petersberg, Russia. When her mother
remarried, she became determined to break away to a life
of her own. In 1913, at the age of fifteen, while
attending the opera, Maria spotted the man she became
determined to marry. She promoted her campaign through
her well-connected uncle and in 1916 she married Tadeusz
Łempicki in St. Petersburg; a well-known ladies man,
gadabout, and lawyer by title, who was tempted by the
significant dowry.
In 1917, during the Russian Revolution, Tadeusz was
arrested in the dead of night by the Bolsheviks. Maria
searched the prisons for him and after several weeks,
with the help of the Swedish consul, she secured his
release. They traveled to Copenhagen, Denmark then
London, England and finally to Paris, France to where
Maria's family had also escaped, along with numerous
upper-class Russian refugees.
(
Biography from
Tamara de Lempicka
)
Tamara de
Lempicka self portrait
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