Example 7: Tamara de Lempicka

Lempicka, Tamara de. Young Lady with Gloves (1930). Oil on Plywood. Painting. Art Deco Society of New York, https://www.artdeco.org/tamara-de-lempicka-interview#:~:text=ML%3A%20Art%20Deco%20influenced%20her,her%20paintings%20from%20this%20era.

Lempicka, Tamara de. The Musician (1929). Oil on Canvas. Painting. Art Deco Society of New York, https://www.artdeco.org/tamara-de-lempicka-interview#:~:text=ML%3A%20Art%20Deco%20influenced%20her,her%20paintings%20from%20this%20era.

Tamara de Lempicka's work is a large part of the Art Deco style and period for various reasons. Her paintings mixed other design styles like Art Nouveau using feminine illustrations and even cubism elements throughout her work. She created her art based on defined geometric shapes and tones from urban city backgrounds to modern female-focused foregrounds which were popular in the 1920s-1930s. Tamara's paintings reflected a lot of her colorful life as she was a pretty independent woman who had managed her own career, owned a sportscar and wore fashionable/elegant clothing for the period as well. Her work and personal style fit the bold and futuristic atmosphere that the Art Deco period along with taking other design styles to play with as well. This example is different than other examples because the design is based on larger color blocking as well as focuses more on the foreground rather than the background of these paintings. It's also holding more of a feminine presence as mentioned before which is something that was more prominent in the Art Nouveau style along with Tamara being one of the few female artists in this period who grew this popular. I think this is also important to me because women in that period were only allowed to do so much and when searching for artists in art deco, many are usually men. Seeing Tamara's work in another part of Art Deco using painting as the main medium is unique and inspiring, especially hearing all she accomplished and went through in her life.