The National Museum in Lublin is presenting the exhibition “Tamara Łempicka – a woman en route”. It is the first monographic presentation of works by a world-famous painter in Poland. The exhibition is presenting 42 oil paintings, 15 drawings and 3 graphics. The artist’s great-granddaughter, Marisa de Lempicka, the president of the Tamara de Lempicka Estate Foundation, participated in the opening ceremony of the exhibition at the Lublin Castle.

The exhibition is an invitation to the world of the 1920s and 1930s, that is, to an extraordinary era of the new style – Art Deco. The works of the artist were inseparably connected with her life; they are presented with her everyday objects – furniture, handicrafts, clothes and machines, bringing closer the extraordinary life of Tamara Łempicka, one of the greatest artists of the 20th century.

Tamara Łempicka (1898–1980), actually Tamara Rozalia Gurwik-Górska, was probably born on May 16, 1898, in Warsaw. She spent her childhood years in luxury, and her parents lived in the company of the wealthy families of tsarist Russia. As a young lady, she studied at a boarding school for girls in Lausanne, from where she often travelled to Poland, France and Italy. The travels contributed to her knowledge of the cultures of other countries and sensitized Tamara to the art of great masters. Her visits to foreign museums had an impact on the artist’s later work.

As a young girl, Tamara showed an extraordinary artistic talent, quickly becoming proficient in drawing and watercolors. At the age of twenty, she became known to the world as one of the most important representatives of the Art Deco era, characterized by classicizing geometrization and the desire to synthesize forms.

In Paris in the 1920s, she became famous as a conscious artist using her own artistic language, characterized by strong drawing, expressive chiaroscuro, austere form and sharp color that allowed her to create genuine portraits, nudes and still lifes. In painting, the most important thing for her was the Hellenistic concept of beauty and thus order, harmony, proportion and rhythm. Throughout her life, Łempicka remained faithful to classical ideals, despite changing styles and experimenting with the material, technique, form and themes.

The exhibition “Tamara Łempicka – a woman en route”, organized by the National Museum in Lublin and Villa la Fleur in cooperation with the Tamara de Lempicka Estate foundation, was co-financed by the Minister of Culture and National Heritage.

Arkadiusz Słomczyński