Tamara de Lempicka exhibition at Palazzo Chiablese

Tuesday, 19 May 2015

Tamara de Lempicka is protagonist of the exhibition space at Polo Reale of Palazzo Chiablese – in Turin, from March 19 to August 30, 2015 – with over 80 works organized in seven thematic sections. The exhibition is curated by G. Mori, sponsored by the City of Turin – Department of Culture, the Regional Directorate for Cultural Heritage and Landscape of Piedmont and the Polo Reale in Turin and produced by 24 ORE Cultura – Gruppo 24 Ore and Arthemisia Group. It’s the perfect occasion to to get to know new aspects of the artist’s life and art.

The Girl in green (Young lady with gloves) welcomes visitors, borrowed from the Pompidou Center of Paris, it is the painting that officially decreed her artistic success, purchased by French State in 1932 to be exposed in the section dedicated to Poland in the new Jeu de Paume. The exhibition opens with the path section “The worlds of Tamara de Lempicka”, an exploration through all the houses in which she lived between 1916 and 1980, between the year of her marriage in St. Petersburg and the year of death in Cuernavaca. Places are correlated with her artistic evolution: watercolors by the Russian period, portraiture of the twenties realized in her Parisian ateliers. The second section, “Madam Baroness, Modern medievalist”, takes its title from an article in the early Forties released in the US, where she spoke of her technical virtuosity expressed mainly in still lifes. Among the works on display, The Seashell an extraordinary trompe-l’oeil of 1941.

The third section, “The Artist’s Daughter” presents those paintings dedicated to her daughter Kizette that brought her more recognition: among the works on display, Kizette at the balcony, awarded in 1927. The fifth section, Dandy déco, tells the ongoing relationship between Lempicka and the world of fashion: like Confidences and The Blue Scarf. In the sixth section, “Scandalous Tamara”, it addresses the issue of Couple: from heterosexual couple of Kiss of Hayez, here shown in a watercolor version given by Veneranda Ambrosian Library of Milan, up to the lesbian couples. The seventh section “The visions of love” is dedicated to the nudes of men and women she loved. A long and fascinating journey to discover a symbol of transgression, independence and modernity.