The Groove Issue 20 - Tamara de Lempicka's Flow
Welcome to the 20th issue of The Groove.
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TAMARA DE LEMPICKA’S FLOW
Tamara de Lempicka, in a dress by Marcel Rochas in Paris. Photographed by d'Ora, around 1931.
Creative people exist in every industry and while they have different skills, visions, and personalities, they unanimously share the enjoyment they get from what they do and the “flow” they experience when they go through a rich creative phase engaged in what they love.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi is one of the preeminent researchers on creativity and in his book, Flow, he describes it as that optimal experience where people have “the feeling when things are going well, as an almost automatic, effortless, yet highly focused state of consciousness”.
This flow is the sweet spot of creativity and innovation. It doesn't mean that there's no serious work involved or that there won’t be difficulties along the way, but when one is fully connected and excited to pursue the tasks that serve as building blocks for major breakthroughs, time flies and the rewards are always worth the effort.
Autoportrait (Tamara in a Green Bugatti), 1929, oil on board. © Tamara de Lempicka Estate
The Hunger
There was a period in the life of artist Tamara de Lempicka, between 1925 and 1939, where she was in constant flow, and her work and life matched that feeling and represented outwardly the creative output and enjoyment that so many long to get to.
Lempicka, who was born in Poland in 1898 as Tamara Górska, moved to Paris with her husband in 1918. One day, her sister, who was about to become an architect earning her own money in a male-dominated world, nudged her: “why don’t you do something of your own?” Lempicka, reminiscing on her childhood drawing skills, decided to enroll herself in painting classes. There, she realized not only that she loved spending time in front of an easel but that she was very good at it. From then on, she formed a purpose and a plan, and her legendary life and career started to take shape.
This woman was an artist who had “the hunger” - that burning desire that every creative person possesses, regardless of their area of interest. How did she fulfill that hunger at the beginning of her career? By spending hours upon hours in front of her canvases, getting better at what consumed her. This hard work put her in flow.
Les Jeune Filles, 1930, oil on panel. © Tamara de Lempicka Estate
There Are No Miracles
There is something about being in flow that all true creative people know: you don’t wait for muses, you don’t sit down and expect people to do the work for you, you have to get down and dirty with whatever has to get done, and that’s when the flow happens. By 1925, Lempicka was more than clear about this, and uttered her life-motto: “There are no miracles. There is only what you make.” Here we have a woman, an artist, and an immigrant, who almost a century ago was already 100% clear that her success or her failure were in her own hands and that breakthroughs only happen by diligently and consistently working on what you love to do.
What started as colorful still lifes in the classrooms of the Academie de la Grande Chaumiere quickly mutated into the inimitable trademark of Tamara de Lempicka: the stylized figures, the use of light, the elegance of the bodies, the cleanliness of her brushstroke, the visual tactility with which she rendered flesh, hair and fabric, the intensity of her color palette.
She was an original, she invented her own style and transcended the boundaries of cubism and art deco. She disliked the approach of the Impressionists, as hers was clean and neat as opposed to the carefree expression of her predecessors. She was selling a dream, beauty, sensuality, and soon enough, her life was matching the paintings. Life and art were one and the same. The galleries in Paris took note of the uniqueness of her work and started hanging her paintings in the best rooms.
Portrait de Mrs. Bush, 1929, oil on canvas. © Tamara de Lempicka Estate
Flow and Deadlines
We know the power that a deadline has when one wants to be creative and Lempicka understood how having one and taking action would propel her to new places of success. Without thinking twice, on her way back to Paris after a trip with her mother and daughter in Italy, Lempicka went to Milan and showed up at the house of the Count of Castelbarco, a patron of the arts whom she was interested in befriending. She had her portfolio with her, and the man agreed to see her even if he had no clue who she was. Castelbarco was impressed with what he saw and right then and there offered Lempicka a show - she was to produce 30 paintings in six months.
I don’t know if you are an artist, an entrepreneur or a businessperson, but if you have seen in person any of Lempicka’s works, you understand that her paintings took time to make. Her figures look almost airbrushed, in a time where she only employed oil on her canvases. But she agreed to the 30 paintings nonetheless, and rushed back to Paris, where in her studio she had only two finished artworks. And so Lempicka indefatigably painted day and night and she finished another 28 canvases within the agreed timeframe. The exhibition became a milestone for her and gave her the confidence to take her career to the next level.
By the late 1920s, Lempicka, who was quite the entrepreneur and liked diversification, had been hired by several magazines to provide art for the covers and for the editorials. She was known in Europe and in the United States, was making great money off of her art and had a glam life hanging out at parties and taking commissions for portraits of monarchs, aristocrats, socialites and the glitterati of the time. She lived and worked in this flow until 1939.
Portrait de Marjorie Ferry, 1932, oil on canvas. © Tamara de Lempicka Estate
The Quality of Timelessness
When World War II broke, Lempicka and her second husband moved to Los Angeles. She had a few shows in the United States, but the world was in a different place and her work didn’t get the same response. Her apogee was over, as the postwar years were embracing modernism and abstract expressionism.
Even though Lempicka did have great success in life, history has also been good to her because her work merits it. Every time I saw one of her paintings in person, I thought to myself: “this could have been painted yesterday, her work is so fresh.” And that is what a true creative should aim for: the flow that produces work that is both timely and timeless, stepping on or contradicting what has been done prior, in order to come up with one’s own thing.
The legacy of those 14 years when Lempicka was in flow are well and alive today. Her paintings are hanging at the Centre Pompidou in Paris and at The Met in New York and in other museums around the world. When Madonna, who was fortunate enough to snatch some very good Lempickas a few decades ago, was at height of her career, she used Lempicka’s artworks and the art deco aesthetics for her “Vogue”, “Express Yourself”, and “Open Your Heart” videos as well as in the iconic “Blonde Ambition” Tour. In recent years Dolce & Gabbana, Nina Ricci, Lanvin, Max Mara, Ferragamo, and Roberto Cavalli have paid homage to Lempicka in her collections.
Movies like Batman and American Made have used her paintings in their set designs. Lempicka’s works are on the covers of the UK prints of Ayn Rand’s literary masterpieces, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, and there have been several plays and musicals inspired by her.
The art market also loves her, in February 2020, Lempicka smashed her own auction records when her 1932 Portrait of Marjorie Ferry sold at Christie’s for $21.1 million, making her the second most expensive female painter in history, after Georgia O’Keeffe.
Those prolific and exhilarating 14 years in flow are what most creative people expect to reproduce in a lifetime. While being “on top” forever and indefinitely seems almost impossible even for the most inventive of us, different stages of one’s lives and careers can always have a piece of “flow”, where work seems like play and, as Csikszentmihalyi wrote, “even routine details can be transformed into personally meaningful games that provide optimal experiences.”
Thank you for reading this far. Looking forward to hearing from you anytime.
PS: Mark your calendars! Join me and Marissa de Lempicka, Tamara de Lempicka’s great-granddaughter, tomorrow Wednesday, February 3rd at 1:00 PM EST, on Instagram Live from my account. We will be talking about Tamara’s life and legacy and her incredible years in flow. Meet us here!