Art I'm Looking at: Tamara de Lempicka at the De Young

There are two major shows worth seeing right now at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, one each at the Legion of Honor and the De Young Museum, both featuring women who mostly painted women. At the De Young is a show of works by Tamara de Lempicka (1898, Warsaw – 1980, Cuernavaca, Mexico), a painter I've been drawn to in the past for her highly stylized portraits and nudes. The show provides a look at the full arc of her career – with which I had only a sketchy acquaintance. 

I hadn't been aware of her long interest in and study of some of the Renaissance painters. At first glance her strongest influence would appear to have been cubism. In particular, some of her work, with limbs reduced to columns, reminded me of Goncharova, but, the connection having been pointed out, it's easy to see the Mannerist tendencies in the poses and the sometimes hollow-looking eyes right out of Pontormo (I hadn't thought of it before, but Modigliani, too, must have been strongly influenced by the Mannerists - those empty Modigliani eyes).  

De Lempicka's strongest work comprises her early portraits and nudes depicting lovers – both male and female. Later, she started painting religious and other subjects and the work starts to look kitschy. According to the wall text, her last show, in New York in 1941, after which she almost completely gave up art until her death in 1980, was mainly of this type of work, and it is quite instructive to see the seven or eight pieces from that show that have been brought together here. Apparently, the work was not well received (criticized for looking insincere and, again, like kitsch). She had lost her mojo. All things must pass, they say. 

As for me, I'm grateful to have had the opportunity to see so much of the earlier, vital, erotically-charged work from the peak of her career, as well as quite a few interesting photographs of her, although I was a bit disappointed that my favorite De Lempicka and probably her most celebrated image – the self-portrait with her sitting in a green Bugatti (in a private collection) – is not in this show. Worth a visit nevertheless. Tamara de Lempicka is on view at the De Young through February 9, 2024.