Tamara de lempicka was a colorful personality.

Painter by day and femme fatale by night, the

decadent polish artist became a veritable icon

of the interwar period; Both she and her work

have become symbols of their era. She studied

in paris under andré lhote, who had a decisive

influence on her work, as did the italian

masters of the renaissance. Tamara de lempicka

sought to achieve a distinctive style, so that

"amid a hundred others, one of my paintings

should stand out at first glance." And she achieved

her goal, developing a unique sculptural style.

The artist's nude studies and equivocal portraits

brought her fame in paris, where the sensuality

and eroticism of her paintings earned her

the sobriquet "ingres perverse." She became

the painter par excellence of the fashionable

society of the jazz age, before leaving europe

on the eve of the war for the united states,

where she would conquer new york and

hollywood. This book-the catalogue for the

first exhibition devoted to the artist in france-reveals

the mystique of tamara de lempicka, who

encompasses at once artist, woman, and legend.