Art & Context 101
This guide includes information about the fine art prints on the 9th floor of Wells Library at Indiana University Bloomington. Use the resources on each page to uncover how art reflects the society in which it was created.
Articles
- Dressing up modernity: Decoration as strategy in Art Deco images of womenThe article author writes "I propose that Tamara de Lempicka . . . employed decorative techniques strategically to negotiate the contested terms of femininity in modern art."
- Femmes Artistes Modernes: Women, art, and modern identity in interwar FranceThis dissertation considers the debate on the "woman artist" as a critical category in interwar France by focusing upon a group of over one hundred artists who exhibited their works with the Societe des Femmes Artistes Modernes (FAM)
Question: How have society portraits like this one helped the upper class express their privilege?
The materials from IU Libraries can help us answer questions like these. Use the links on this page to learn more about Tamara De Lempicka's work painting portraits for the upper class.
Books from IUCAT
Tamara de Lempicka by Call Number: ND955.P63 L452 2015Publication Date: 2015An aura of mystery has surrounded Tamara de Lempicka since she was born, not in Warsaw in 1902, as she claimed, but according to official records in 1898 in Moscow. The beautiful and scandalous Tamara was the extravagant muse of Art Deco, an icon of the roaring twenties, and a successful painter of intensely sensual portraits that were powerfully sculptural with Cubist lines, embellished with sophisticated decorative elements. Cool colors, cramped spaces and stark contrasts between light and shade surround the unforgettable faces of rich, elegant, emancipated, and theatrical women fixed in their existential melancholy. The catalogue includes a careful selection of unforgettable paintings and valuable historic photographs offering us a fascinating thematic reconstruction of the personal and professional aspects of Tamara's life, including the places she lived, her involvement in the sophisticated fashion world of the period, and her studies of the nude, as well as her still-lifes and portraits. Contents: Tamara's worlds: from Russia to Mexico; Still life - a recurring theme in Lempicka's work, with echoes and references that range from 17th-century Flemish painting, to the rediscovery of trompe-l'oeil in the 1930s to1950s, and contemporary photography; Devotion - a constant theme in Lempicka's oeuvre is religious. It is identified and analyzed in terms of the art of the period. Portraits - Paintings and drawings are analyzed, and the initial classical sources pointed up, as well as how they relate to modern photography and cinematography. A section is dedicated to the portraits of children; The nude - The study of the nude from mannerist sources to the photography of Albin-Guillot e Brassa ; Fashion - Lempicka's close ties to the fashion world examined through her paintings, her experience as a photographic model, and her sophisticated wardrobe. Published to accompany an exhibition at Palazzo Chiablese, Turin (19 March - 30 August 2015).
Tamara de Lempicka by Call Number: ND237.L545 A4 2006Publication Date: 2007A femme fatale to equal Greta Garbo and Mae West, and a fashion icon in her own lifetime, this exhibition catalog is dedicated to the artist as well as the concept of the modern woman she represented. Born in 1898 in Warsaw, Lempicka fled during the Bolshevik Revolution, arriving in Paris in 1918 where she began painting under Andr#65533; Lhote. Influenced by a trip to Italy, she combined neo-cubism and Renaissance influences, reducing the harmony of her colors to the essential and tightly framing her portraits in order to give the figures energy and stature. In 1933 she married her best client, Baron Raoul Kuffner de Dioszegh, and in 1939 they left for America where Tamara conquered New York and Los Angeles exhibiting in important galleries.Divided into three sections, the book focuses on her distinctive artistic style, and on her fascination with the female form, which she glorified in paintings such as her famous Beautiful Rafaela, Portrait of a Young Girl in a Green Dress, and Portrait of Suzi Solidor. In the third section, author Emmanuel Br#65533;on and the artist's granddaughter unveil the legend of Lempicka, illustrated with rare and sultry archival photographs of the artist. The appendixes include a detailed illustrated chronology and a catalog of works. The book's modern design reflects the Art Deco style and makes Tamara de Lempicka an attractive addition to the library of Lempicka and Art Deco fans.
Art History and Class Struggle by Call Number: N72.S6 H2613 1978ISBN: 0904383326Publication Date: 1978Translation with revisions of Histoire de l'art et lutte des classes, originally published 1973.
The Society Portrait: Painting, Prestige and the Pursuit of Elegance by Call Number: N7592.5 .B33 2007bPublication Date: 2007
The Jazz Age by Call Number: NK789.5.A7 J39 2017ISBN: 9780300224054Publication Date: 2017An exhilarating look at Art Deco design in 1920s America, using jazz as its unifying metaphor Capturing the dynamic pulse of the era's jazz music, this lavishly illustrated publication explores American taste and style during the golden age of the 1920s. Following the destructive years of the First World War, this flourishing decade marked a rebirth of aesthetic innovation that was cultivated to a great extent by American talent and patronage. Due to an influx of European émigrés to the United States, as well as American enthusiasm for traveling to Europe's cultural capitals, a reciprocal wave of experimental attitudes began traveling back and forth across the Atlantic, forming a creative vocabulary that mirrored the ecstatic spirit of the times. The Jazz Age showcases developments in design, art, architecture, and technology during the '20s and early '30s, and places new emphasis on the United States as a vital part of the emerging marketplace for Art Deco luxury goods. Featuring hundreds of full-color illustrations and essays by two leading historians of decorative arts, this comprehensive catalogue shows how America and the rest of the world worked to establish a new visual representation of modernity.
