I bought this book in London in 2000 and 16 years later I finally read it. I knew nothing about Tamara’s life and paintings and I can’t remember why I bought this book in the first place. I think it was an article I read at the time.

I am not an art historian, academic, dealer or collector, I love the arts and Marc Chagall is one of my favourite painters, but I appreciate many others from different periods and ‘categorizations’. Still, this book sat on my library, I remember looking at it many times but never with enough interest, or prompted by an external source i.e. exhibition or review, until I spontaneously picked it up and read it.

The author has brought to life a brave, complex, wounded, but above all, fascinating woman. And although the author makes her profound admiration for Tamara’s unquestionable talent very clear, she does not shy away from showing the flawed and fearful human being. Depression, loneliness, obscurity, unhappiness, the book shows that her paintings were her life and everything in her is in her paintings.

The book also demonstrates how women painters were seen as inferior and less valuable throughout art history vis-à-vis male painters, how ideals of ‘feminism’ have been narrowly defined, and how superficial and unreliable the mass media, even decades ago, were. And that a person’s life cannot be detached from its historical context.

One minor detail, I wish the author had expanded a little bit on what happened to Tamara’s daughter after her death. ( )

A very enjoyable book.

Like her book on Emily Post, she looks at more than just the artist she is writing about, she also looks at the world at large that helped shape them and vice versa. I was aware of this artist work, but never new her name. I only read this book based on the strength of the authors work on the Emily Post one.

Tamra De Lempicka was a fascinating woman, a highly talented artist whose personal life sabotaged her professional and critical opportunities.

But rather than arguing that she should have changed her way of life and outlook to cultivate more appropriate and useful friends, critical reviews or artistic acceptance, I feel this book shows the weakness of the system as a whole.

Her art work is phenomenal, beautiful and unique and deserved to be taken on it's own merit, not marginalized becuase she held different social and political views or valued being a socialite as well as an artist.

My one gripe is one I almost always have about biographies of artists. They will go into great detailed descriptions of artworks and not provide even so much as a black and white photo (though I must say there are several gorgeous color prints of her most recognizable works), but they will include photographs of people mentioned once and never again.

Don't describe a painting, show it! ( )