Remembering Tamara, Self-portrait Print

Ah, this weakness of mine for the chic life, for drinking "Veuve Clicquot", and doing it properly, i.e. with all kinds of international celebrities as friends.... That's why I admire the James Bond movies so much, especially the older ones, the ones with the recently passend away Sean Connery. I watch them over and over again, never get tired of them.... What a style there, what splendor! One becomes envious indeed - of this agent's life, so risky though and yet - so exciting. Well... Tamara Lempicka is also such an agent. Fascinating, breathtaking, seductive. Although her weapon is not a gun, but a brush, she masters her task with flying colors. She excites, and thrills, and confuses. She creates for us a world where other laws and realities prevail. Where at every turn there are enigmatically smiling bigwig women, and their knights in dapper fashion armor, made by the hottest Parisian couturiers. A parade of cocktail dresses and tuxedos from the period between the two world wars, all that, right on the eve of the Great Depression. "The Great Gatsby" in its purest form. And the amazing thing: despite all her nouveau riche attitude, Tamara Lempicka was undoubtedly a gifted artist. She skillfully absorbed both the laws of classical painting and the revolutionary forms of modern constructivism. She mastered them and then brought herself out: neat and tidy, without the "experimental nonsense", one excellent Art Deco product after another. The way every rich customer of the time would habe liked it. What else could she do? An emigrant from revolutionary Russia - without money, but with a convinced alcoholic as a husband? However, if only for the money, Tamara Lempicka could also easily become an agent. She had the Talent for this, maybe even more than any James Bond. She had somehow managed to snatch her husband from the Bolsheviks, and 20 years later, her daughter - from Nazi Germany. Certainly not an easy mission, for despite her Aryan appearance - Tamara Lempicka was Jewish... And the aristocratic "de" - just a cover name...