TAMARA DE LEMPICKA (1898 – 1980) tamara in the green bugatti (c1929)
Born Maria Górska to a wealthy family in Warsaw
Poland, Lempicka developed her interest in art on tours of Italy with her grandmother. Though con- sidered an independent thinker, she followed the traditional roles of the era: Marriage to prominent lawyer, Tadeusz Łempicki and a conventional family and life in Pre- revolution St. Petersburg, Russia. To avoid the burgeoning Russian revolt, she and her family emigrated to Paris and it was there she began her painting studies under Maurice Denis and André Lhote. As with many wealthy Russian families, the revolution saw the reversal of their fortunes, so earning money as an artist was suggested by a relative and as a result she began her studies at the Académie de la Grand Chaumière and then later at the Academie Ranson. Heavily influenced by the cubists and especially by the neoclassical style of Ingres, those viewpoints would merge into Lempicka’s unique, one-of-a-kind style.
Success came in 1925, during the international Exposition of Modern Decoratie and Industrial Arts, which later came to be known simply as Art Deco, where she was discovered byHarper’s Bazaar and other American magazines. Her distinctive portraiture is known the world around, only to be superseded by her famous libido as she embarked on notorious affairs with both men and women throughout her career. Fame came at the behest of some of the world’s great fashion magazines who printed her works, images she would describe this way, “I was the first woman to make clear paintings and that was the origin of my success. Among a hundred canvases, mine were always recognizable. The galleries tended to show my pictures in the best rooms, because they attracted people. My work was clear and finished. My goal: never copy. Create a new style, with luminous and brilliant colors, rediscover the elegance of my models.” Fait accompli!
BEAUFORD DELANEY
(1901 – 1979) A Tennessee native, Beauford Delaney was born in
1901 to prominent and respected members of Knox- ville’s black community: His father a Methodist minister, his mother also a powerful figure in his parent’s church. Born into slavery, his mother would teach Delaney about the injustices of racism and instill in him the value of education. As a child Delaney showed an interest in art and creation, exhibiting remarkable drawing skills in his early high school work. So much so, that he drew the attention of a local impressionist artist, Lloyd Branson, who would mentor and give lessons to him. Branson encouraged Delaney to study art in Boston and at 16, he would move there to attend classes at the Massachu- setts Normal Art School, the South Boston School of Art and the Copley Society over the next five years. 1929 brought Delaney to New York, first to Harlem
untitled (c1957)
and then to Greenwich Village mounting his first show at the New York Public Library in 1930. Several other shows followed throughout the ‘30s and ‘40s, which consisted primarily of almost folk-driven, portraiture he executed in pastels. Delaney became part of a gay bohemian circle of mainly white friends; but he was furtive and rarely comfortable with his sexuality. By 1948 however, he and Ellis Wilson were both prominent figures in New York’s art culture. His works consisted of brilliantly colored, street scenes and interiors, primarily executed in his distinctive, thick impasto technique. Heavily influence by abstract impressionism, and van Gogh’s rich technique, the ‘50s saw Delaney’s work move more and more towards a nonrepresentational style, but his passionate use of dazzling color remained. His unique perspective and artistic progression make him one of the foremost abstract expressionists of his generation. In his own words, he described it thus, “The abstraction, ostensibly, is simply for me the penetration of something that is more profound in many ways than rigidity of a form. A form if it breathes some, if it has some enigma to it, it is also the enigma that is the abstract, I would think.”
MARCH 2018 | RAGE monthly 21
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