Art Deco was one of the first truly international styles, influencing the design of just about everything from buildings to furniture, jewellery to fashion, and art to everyday objects like radios and vacuum cleaners. It took its name (short for Arts Décoratifs) from the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes Arts which was held in Paris in 1925, and which serves as a fair starting point to credit for the birth of a movement. We are slap-bang in the middle of the Roaring Twenties, the era of the Jazz Age and of flappers, of motion pictures and the Charleston, of The Great Gatsby and Radio City Music Hall, and whilst this representative list smacks of the United States, the cultural vibe was no less felt in Berlin, Paris, London and Sydney. It was an era of economic prosperity and cultural dynamism and as such, don’t be surprised to see this blog return to this period in the future.
Art Deco drew its inspiration from such art movements as Cubism, Futurism, and the influence of the Bauhaus. It played with geometric motifs and bright, bold colours, and of all the artists pursuing this style, one of the most memorable and interesting was Tamara de Lempicka.
Born in Poland in 1898, she lived, after her parents divorced, with her wealthy grandmother, who spoiled her with clothes and travel. By age 14 she was attending school in Lausanne, and holidaying in St Petersburg. All this high living gave the young girl an idea of how she wanted to live and what her future should be. Thus, when she found she had a talent for art, she took herself to Paris to live among the bourgeois and bohemian of the Left Bank (where else?). Between the wars, she painted portraits of the great and the good, and many of Eastern Europe’s exiled nobility, bringing her critical acclaim, social celebrity and considerable wealth. She was also well-known for her highly stylised nudes.
Her iconic work exuded a confidence that epitomised the era (see her Self-Portrait in the Green Bugatti, for instance). But let’s look at her Young Lady with Gloves (AKA Girl in the Green Dress), typical of her style. It has streamlined, geometric shapes and clean, metallic surfaces depicting a beautiful, sophisticated woman. She exudes a detached aura of superiority, and there is a visually striking interplay of compositional effects, angular lines, and shading. The unabashed sensualism of those nipples and that navel visible through the fabric is pure de Lempicka. Small wonder that one of her high-profile collectors is international superstar, Madonna, who has featured some of de Lempicka’s works in her own videos, notably Vogue. Pushing the boundaries as a fearless female artist, she was perhaps the Madonna of her day.
