Smiling Nude by Tamara de Lempicka

Tamara de Lempicka
1898-1980 | Polish

Smiling Nude

Signed “Lempicka”(bottom right)
Pencil on paper

“Everything that I did was never done like the others were doing... I wanted to do what I want.” - Tamara de Lempicka

This captivating pencil on paper by Tamara de Lempicka captures the artist's exceptional draftsmanship in all its glory. This work, entitled Smiling Nude, evokes Lempicka's signature blend of elegance and modernity that was quintessentially Art Deco, a movement that Lempicka defined in her artistic career.

With confident and fluid lines, Lempicka beautifully portrays a woman with the classic 1920s flapper hairstyle in a languid pose. This drawing is unique for its facial details, such as the wide eyes and slightly upturned mouth, which Lempicka most often left out of her fast-paced drawings. 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 the acclaimed artist's inner world and witness 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 her family fled to Paris, where they 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 unique genre found only in her oeuvre. 

Circa 1928

Paper: 7 3/4" high x 10 3/8" wide (19.69 x 26.35 cm)
Frame: 15" high x 17 3/4" wide x 1 1/4" deep (38.10 x 45.09 x 3.18 cm)

Provenance:
By descent, from the artist