Autoportrait (Tamara in a Green Bugatti)

Autoportrait (Self-Portrait in a Green Bugatti)
Artist	Tamara de Lempicka
Year	1929
Medium	Oil on panel
Movement	Art Deco
Dimensions	35 cm× 27 cm(13 (3/4) in× 10 (5/8) in)
Location	Private Collection, Switzerland

Autoportrait (Tamara in a Green Bugatti) is a self-portrait by the Polish artist Tamara de Lempicka, which she painted in Paris in 1929. ^[1] It was commissioned by the German fashion magazine Die Dame for the cover of the magazine, to celebrate the independence of women. It is one of the best-known examples of Art Deco portrait painting.

Description

In 1928, De Lempicka was commissioned to make a self-portrait for the cover of the German fashion magazine Die Dame. The painting she produced showed her at the wheel of a Bugatti racing car, wearing a leather helmet and gloves and wrapped in a gray scarf. She portrayed herself as a personification of cold beauty, independence, wealth and inaccessibility. ^[2] In fact she did not own a Bugatti automobile; her own car was a small yellow Renault, which was stolen one night when she and her friends were celebrating at Café de la Rotonde in Montparnasse. ^[3]

Cockpit of a Bugatti type 43. The steering wheel was actually on the right, not the left as shown in the painting.

Although De Lempicka's portrait shows the steering wheel on the left side of the car, the Bugatti models 23, 43 and 46 of that period actually had the steering wheel on the right side.

Influences

De Lempicka developed her painting skills among the avant-garde art and literature movements of Neo-Cubism, Futurism, and Art Deco of the "Lost Generation". ^[4] She studied at the Académie Ranson under Maurice Denis, although she only credited him for her draftsmanship skills. One of her main influences was the Neo-cubist André Lhote (professor to De Lempicka at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière) ^[5]

A possible influence for this particular picture might have been by André Kertész, who was living in Paris in the 1920s and whose 1927 photo has a very similar composition. ^[6]

Patron

The female editor of Die Dame, a popular German fashion magazine, encountered De Lempicka in Monte Carlo while the almost-divorced baroness was on vacation and commissioned her to paint a self-portrait for an upcoming cover. De Lempicka replaced her yellow Renault with a green Bugatti because she believed that a green Bugatti appeared more elite and more beautiful. ^[2]

References

1. Birnbaum, Paula J. (2012-12-01). "Tamara de Łempicka — uosobienie współczesnej kobiety" . Archiwum Emigracji (in Polish and English): 116–126. doi:10.12775/AE.2012.010. ISSN   2391-7911.
2. Lempicka-Foxhall 1987, p. 77.
3. Néret 2016, p. 7.
4. Mori 2011, p. ^{[ page needed ]}.
5. Blondel, Brugger & Gronberg (2004), p. ^{[ page needed ]}.
6. "Self-portrait (Tamara in a Green Bugatti) – Tamara Łempicka". Culture.pl. 2017-12-08. Retrieved 2025-06-13.

Sources

• Blondel, Alain; Brugger, Ingried & Gronberg, Tag (2004). Tamara de Lempicka: Art Deco Icon. Royal Academy of Arts. ISBN   978-1-903973-42-4. OCLC   905795562.
• Lempicka-Foxhall, Kizette (1987). Phillips, Charles (ed.). Passion by Design: The Art and Times of Tamara de Lempicka . New York: Abbeville Press. ISBN   978-0-7892-0503-2. OCLC   556355687 – via Internet Archive.
• Mori, Gioia (2011). Tamara de Lempicka: the Queen of Modern . Milano: Skira. ISBN   978-88-572-0931-9. OCLC   758437195 – via Internet Archive.
• Néret, Gilles (2016). Tamara de Lempicka: 1898–1980, déesse de l'ère automobile[Tamara de Lempicka: 1898–1980, goddess of the automobile era] (in French). Taschen. ISBN   978-3-8365-3225-9. OCLC   971889094.

Further reading

• Birnbaum, Paula (2003). "Painting the Perverse: Tamara de Lempicka and the Modern Woman Artist". In Chadwick, Whitney; Latimer, Tirza True (eds.). The modern woman revisited : Paris between the wars. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press. pp. 95–108. ISBN   978-0-8135-3291-2. OCLC   51093315.
• Birnbaum, Paula J. (2012). "Tamara De Lempicka: The Modern Woman Personified". Archiwum Emigracji. Uniwersytet Mikołaja Kopernika. ISSN   2391-7911. OCLC   999115823.
• Claridge, Laura P.; Lempicka, Tamara de (1999). Tamara de Lempicka: A Life of Deco and Decadence . New York: Clarkson Potter Publishing. ISBN   978-0-517-70557-5. OCLC   40805502 – via Internet Archive.