WEBVTT - Tamara de Lempicka 0:00:01.320 --> 0:00:04.240 Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:13.960 of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly 0:00:14.000 --> 0:00:18.160 Frye and I'm Tracy V. Wilson, and today we're going 0:00:18.200 --> 0:00:20.560 to talk about an artist who has kind of been 0:00:20.600 --> 0:00:22.840 on my radar for a while, but definitely as a 0:00:22.880 --> 0:00:26.000 bit of a backgrounder. And then one of my very 0:00:26.040 --> 0:00:29.720 dearest friends suggested her because there is a really fabulous 0:00:29.840 --> 0:00:32.720 exhibit of her work going on at the DeYoung Museum 0:00:33.080 --> 0:00:35.800 in San Francisco right now, not for a whole lot longer, 0:00:36.240 --> 0:00:39.440 It's up until February ninth, and I one hundred percent 0:00:39.560 --> 0:00:41.440 scrambled for a minute to see if I can make 0:00:41.479 --> 0:00:44.960 it out there, but my schedule is not being cooperative 0:00:45.360 --> 0:00:48.879 with that plan, so I ordered a bunch of books 0:00:49.080 --> 0:00:53.800 and spent a ton of time researching her instead. So 0:00:53.960 --> 0:00:56.600 many thanks to my dear friend Kristen, who I adore, 0:00:56.840 --> 0:01:01.160 for setting this idea in motion tomorrow. The Olimpica was 0:01:01.200 --> 0:01:05.639 a trailblazer with an incredible, very fresh style that really 0:01:05.760 --> 0:01:10.200 defined and influenced the Art Deco movement. She lived a 0:01:10.240 --> 0:01:14.280 life that was focused on originality, both artistic and personally. 0:01:15.080 --> 0:01:18.840 She is a lot of personality heads up as we 0:01:18.880 --> 0:01:21.560 talk about her that there is very brief mention of 0:01:21.600 --> 0:01:26.280 domestic violence in this episode. Tamara Gerwick Gorshka was born, 0:01:26.319 --> 0:01:30.120 according to her own account, on May sixteenth, eighteen ninety eight, 0:01:30.440 --> 0:01:36.560 probably in Warsaw, Poland. Her parents were Boris Gerwick Gorshki, 0:01:36.640 --> 0:01:41.080 who was a lawyer, and Malvina Gurick Gorshka. As she 0:01:41.120 --> 0:01:44.920 always told her personal story, her family moved to Moscow 0:01:44.959 --> 0:01:47.559 and she was still very, very tiny, but there's really 0:01:47.600 --> 0:01:49.880 been a lot of debate about whether that was the 0:01:49.920 --> 0:01:53.720 case or whether she was actually born there after the 0:01:53.720 --> 0:01:57.840 family moved. The timing of that move also suggests that 0:01:57.880 --> 0:02:00.640 she would have been born several years ear earlier than 0:02:00.680 --> 0:02:04.080 she actually claimed, so it's now believed that she was 0:02:04.120 --> 0:02:08.160 actually born in eighteen ninety four. To add even more 0:02:08.320 --> 0:02:11.040 confusion to the story of her entry into the world, 0:02:11.280 --> 0:02:15.440 her first name appears in three different ways in addition 0:02:15.520 --> 0:02:19.560 to Tamara. Sometimes this is recorded as Maria and other 0:02:19.680 --> 0:02:24.200 times as Rosalia. There are also recorded entries where the 0:02:24.280 --> 0:02:28.360 name is some combination of two or those three possible 0:02:28.400 --> 0:02:32.720 first names. She had an older brother named Stanzik and 0:02:32.840 --> 0:02:37.600 eventually a baby sister named Adrian. There are additional question 0:02:37.680 --> 0:02:43.000 marks in Tamora's childhood, some of them quite tragic. Her father, Boris, 0:02:43.040 --> 0:02:46.799 possibly died by suicide, although Tomorrow always stated that her 0:02:46.840 --> 0:02:49.760 parents had divorced while she was still young. If you're 0:02:49.800 --> 0:02:51.960 starting to think, wow, she told a lot of stories 0:02:52.000 --> 0:02:55.480 that don't really always connect with what's verifiable that is accurate, 0:02:55.600 --> 0:02:57.680 and you might want to just be accustomed to that. 0:02:58.520 --> 0:03:01.120 Boris was not part of her life though. After her 0:03:01.240 --> 0:03:05.160 very earliest years, regardless of the nature of the end 0:03:05.240 --> 0:03:08.080 of the marriage, Malvina took her children and moved back 0:03:08.120 --> 0:03:11.040 to Warsaw, where she had grown up and where her family, 0:03:11.120 --> 0:03:15.200 which was quite wealthy, assisted in raising the children. As 0:03:15.240 --> 0:03:20.040 a teenager, Tamara benefited from her relationship with her grandmother, Clementina, 0:03:20.600 --> 0:03:23.880 in that the two of them traveled extensively together. Tamara 0:03:24.000 --> 0:03:27.040 got a lot of exposure to arts and culture, and 0:03:27.080 --> 0:03:29.600 because of her family's wealth, she was also able to 0:03:29.639 --> 0:03:34.120 attend a Swiss finishing school while staying with relatives in 0:03:34.200 --> 0:03:38.120 Saint Petersburg. Sometime between the ages of eighteen and twenty one, 0:03:38.880 --> 0:03:42.680 Tomorrow met a young man named Todayus Lempiqui, and today 0:03:42.800 --> 0:03:46.360 Us was handsome. He was a lawyer. He was very 0:03:46.400 --> 0:03:50.040 prominent in the Saint Petersburg social scene, and the pair 0:03:50.160 --> 0:03:54.360 quickly fell in love and got married. Things seemed perfect 0:03:54.400 --> 0:03:57.200 at this point. The couple ran in very stylish and 0:03:57.240 --> 0:04:00.120 wealthy circles, and today Us was on track together had 0:04:00.160 --> 0:04:03.800 an appointment as a lawyer for the czar. But that 0:04:03.920 --> 0:04:07.720 meant that when the Russian Revolution started in nineteen seventeen 0:04:07.880 --> 0:04:10.720 and the Bolsheviks came to power, Today's was on the 0:04:10.760 --> 0:04:14.480 wrong side of the revolution and he was arrested. The 0:04:14.560 --> 0:04:17.760 exact reason is a little unclear. He was arrested in 0:04:17.800 --> 0:04:20.960 the middle of the night, and Tomorrow was not told why. 0:04:21.720 --> 0:04:25.279 Tomorrow's family had already left Poland, which was occupied, and 0:04:25.320 --> 0:04:28.840 they had headed to Copenhagen, but Tomorrow's stayed in Saint Petersburg, 0:04:28.880 --> 0:04:31.279 where the couple had been living, and looked for him. 0:04:31.480 --> 0:04:34.080 She even visited prisons to see if he was there. 0:04:34.960 --> 0:04:38.240 That didn't turn up anything, so she started asking anybody 0:04:38.279 --> 0:04:41.240 she could for help, and finally got some assistance from 0:04:41.279 --> 0:04:45.599 the Swedish consul. It's not really spelled out anywhere, but 0:04:45.839 --> 0:04:47.960 it seems like she may have had an affair with 0:04:48.040 --> 0:04:52.400 the consul. He promised that he was working on Today's case, 0:04:52.560 --> 0:04:55.400 but also urged her to get out of Russia, which 0:04:55.440 --> 0:04:59.200 she eventually agreed to. He got her to Finland and 0:04:59.240 --> 0:05:02.359 then the Console returns to Russia with the promise that 0:05:02.440 --> 0:05:06.280 he would keep working on freeing her husband. Tomorrow went 0:05:06.360 --> 0:05:09.679 to Copenhagen and eventually the Console was able to secure 0:05:09.720 --> 0:05:12.960 Todais's release. He was able to join his wife, and 0:05:13.000 --> 0:05:16.920 from there they moved to Paris and sort of resettled there. 0:05:17.640 --> 0:05:20.400 They had their daughter, Maria Christina. She was born in 0:05:20.440 --> 0:05:23.920 Paris shortly after the move, and they called her Casette. 0:05:23.960 --> 0:05:27.440 She would become a huge part not just of Tomorrow's life, 0:05:27.480 --> 0:05:31.799 but also of her art. Yeah, there is some insinuation 0:05:32.000 --> 0:05:35.640 in most biographies that that Console kind of was like, hey, 0:05:35.720 --> 0:05:41.280 I will help you if you help me by sexual favors. 0:05:43.720 --> 0:05:47.640 So Tracy just referenced Tamara's art career, and that art 0:05:47.680 --> 0:05:52.960 career began in Paris. At this point, the family had nothing, 0:05:53.560 --> 0:05:57.760 and it seems that Todayo's was really struggling regarding a job. 0:05:58.600 --> 0:06:02.680 Tomorrow's sister Adrianne is often credited with advising her sibling. 0:06:03.440 --> 0:06:07.000 This is written different ways, but basically, get a career 0:06:07.120 --> 0:06:10.479 and you won't have to depend on your husband. And 0:06:10.560 --> 0:06:12.719 this sort of makes it sound like today Is was 0:06:12.800 --> 0:06:15.160 just kind of kicking around like a deadbeat, but it 0:06:15.240 --> 0:06:18.760 is a lot more complicated than that. He had just 0:06:18.800 --> 0:06:21.240 spent six weeks as a political prisoner, and he was 0:06:21.360 --> 0:06:24.760 very changed by that experience. He was not the happy, 0:06:24.760 --> 0:06:27.360 go lucky playboy that he had been when the couple met. 0:06:28.240 --> 0:06:31.640 But Tamorrow also didn't have any patience for this change 0:06:31.640 --> 0:06:36.120 in personality. Although she did step up to financially support 0:06:36.120 --> 0:06:40.600 the family, Today's, for his part, was not kind to 0:06:40.640 --> 0:06:44.240 her either. He turned down jobs that he was offered 0:06:44.279 --> 0:06:46.800 because he felt they were beneath him, and this led 0:06:46.839 --> 0:06:49.960 to arguing, and that arguing escalated to the point where 0:06:50.000 --> 0:06:54.360 Today's became physically abusive. Both of these people were miserable 0:06:55.200 --> 0:06:57.360 as she was looking for ways to bring in an 0:06:57.360 --> 0:07:01.279 income through art. She was incredibly sad about doing so. 0:07:01.920 --> 0:07:03.800 One of the things she did at this time was 0:07:03.839 --> 0:07:07.000 to add the DA to her name to become Tamora Olimpica. 0:07:07.920 --> 0:07:10.520 She had a strong knowledge of art from her travels 0:07:10.560 --> 0:07:13.640 to museums around the world with her grandmother, but in 0:07:13.680 --> 0:07:17.800 Paris she started studying art formally with Maurice Deni and 0:07:17.800 --> 0:07:22.800 andrelt Lot was particularly influential on her, although she did 0:07:22.880 --> 0:07:26.520 soon go past him in skill. According to an interview 0:07:26.560 --> 0:07:30.120 with Tamara's great granddaughter and a state manager, Marisa d'limpica, 0:07:30.360 --> 0:07:33.200 that was part of a short documentary prepared by the 0:07:33.240 --> 0:07:36.440 Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco in connection with that 0:07:36.520 --> 0:07:39.560 exhibit we mentioned at the top of the show, Tomorrow 0:07:39.560 --> 0:07:42.320 once told her quote, you know, Marissa, when we left 0:07:42.320 --> 0:07:45.440 Saint Petersburg, we had to flee. We lost our house, 0:07:45.840 --> 0:07:48.240 we lost many of our friends, we lost all of 0:07:48.280 --> 0:07:53.560 our possessions. We arrived in Paris with nothing. I decided 0:07:53.640 --> 0:07:56.800 I was going to become the most important painter in Paris. 0:07:57.160 --> 0:07:59.840 And after every painting I would sell, I would buy 0:07:59.840 --> 0:08:04.080 myself a diamond bracelet. So that may sound like a 0:08:04.080 --> 0:08:09.920 frivolous move, and certainly Tomorrow was a very showy human being. 0:08:10.040 --> 0:08:13.280 She was like such a peacock in all the great ways. 0:08:13.800 --> 0:08:16.440 But as her great granddaughter Marissa goes on to explain, 0:08:17.040 --> 0:08:21.800 those purchases actually achieved two things. So one, that stack 0:08:21.840 --> 0:08:25.760 of bracelets that did grow on her forearm telegraphed how 0:08:25.800 --> 0:08:30.480 successful she was. And two those valuable pieces of jewelry 0:08:30.600 --> 0:08:34.440 served as a sort of insurance policy. Tomorrow knew that 0:08:34.520 --> 0:08:37.120 if her life once again turned on a dime like 0:08:37.160 --> 0:08:39.559 it had in Russia and she was left with nothing, 0:08:40.120 --> 0:08:43.600 she could use those bracelets as a potential financial cushion, 0:08:43.880 --> 0:08:46.840 basically selling them off to live. After we take a 0:08:46.880 --> 0:08:49.440 quick sponsor break, we'll talk about the way her career 0:08:49.600 --> 0:09:02.840 really took off. By nineteen twenty two, Dlimpica was ready 0:09:02.880 --> 0:09:06.240 to start showing her work. The first painting that she 0:09:06.320 --> 0:09:09.560 became known for in Paris was portrait of a young 0:09:09.640 --> 0:09:13.080 Lady in a blue dress. This is an image of 0:09:13.120 --> 0:09:16.600 a woman named Ira Perrault, with whom Tamara had a 0:09:16.679 --> 0:09:23.040 romantic relationship. This painting doesn't feature the very stylized appearance 0:09:23.080 --> 0:09:27.120 that Dylmpica's work would eventually become known for. It shows 0:09:27.240 --> 0:09:30.120 Ira from the waist up and she appears to be 0:09:30.280 --> 0:09:34.040 sitting and wearing a very simple, drapy blue garment. It 0:09:34.080 --> 0:09:36.120 says it's a blue dress. Honestly, it looks like a 0:09:36.120 --> 0:09:40.199 piece of fabric draped across her. Era's dark hair is wavy, 0:09:40.280 --> 0:09:43.880 it looks slightly tozzled. It's framing her face, and her 0:09:43.920 --> 0:09:47.040 face has an orange red lip, and her dark eyes 0:09:47.080 --> 0:09:51.160 are outlined with coal. Compared to Dlmpica's later work, it 0:09:51.200 --> 0:09:56.160 looks quite naturalist. Another painting, portrait of a polo player, 0:09:56.600 --> 0:10:00.320 is most likely a painting of her husband, Todaus. This 0:10:00.480 --> 0:10:04.120 image is also a pretty straightforward portrait. The man that 0:10:04.160 --> 0:10:07.120 it features is facing slightly down and away from the viewer, 0:10:07.520 --> 0:10:11.199 so his eyes are shadowed and his expression is fairly neutral. 0:10:12.080 --> 0:10:16.880 His clothes are shades of beijas, tans, and browns. Another 0:10:16.960 --> 0:10:20.600 painting from her early showings once again shows a person 0:10:21.040 --> 0:10:25.560 close to her life, this time her daughter Cosette. This 0:10:25.640 --> 0:10:27.960 painting is called Portrait of a Little Girl with her 0:10:28.000 --> 0:10:30.720 Teddy Bear, and it shows Cosette sitting down with her 0:10:30.760 --> 0:10:33.640 teddy Bear seated next to her. One of her arms 0:10:33.720 --> 0:10:36.400 is draped around the bear's shoulders. They kind of look 0:10:36.480 --> 0:10:40.040 like they're sitting on a stupora set of stairs. This 0:10:40.160 --> 0:10:42.680 painting is a little less detailed than the other two 0:10:42.720 --> 0:10:46.760 we've mentioned, with more expressive brushstrokes that are still dramatic 0:10:46.840 --> 0:10:49.600 in contrast, but they're often softer than in the era 0:10:49.679 --> 0:10:53.440 in today's portraits. She doesn't use outlines in this one, 0:10:53.520 --> 0:10:57.840 so all of the vibes are very soft on it. Overall, 0:10:58.000 --> 0:11:02.000 Dlimpica's early works reflect the development of her personal style 0:11:02.480 --> 0:11:05.679 after her studies with Denie who was a symbolist at 0:11:05.800 --> 0:11:10.120 Loote who combined Cubism with more natural styles, and her 0:11:10.200 --> 0:11:13.520 early art shows that she is working towards becoming a 0:11:13.640 --> 0:11:17.559 unique voice in the Paris art scene. She later noted, 0:11:17.800 --> 0:11:20.400 and she said this many times in a variety of ways, 0:11:20.960 --> 0:11:24.320 my goal is never to copy, create a new style, 0:11:24.640 --> 0:11:29.120 clear luminous colors and feel the elegance of the models. 0:11:29.520 --> 0:11:33.760 Over the next several years, Stylmpica's singular style started to 0:11:33.760 --> 0:11:37.120 really coll less in her work. Throughout the years from 0:11:37.160 --> 0:11:40.360 nineteen twenty two to nineteen twenty four, she was showing 0:11:40.400 --> 0:11:44.320 her work alongside other artists in salons, but just a 0:11:44.360 --> 0:11:47.280 few years into her career, she also had her first 0:11:47.440 --> 0:11:52.560 solo show that was in Milan. After the Milan exhibit, 0:11:52.600 --> 0:11:56.040 Tamara's rise to fame as an artist was quite rapid. 0:11:56.559 --> 0:12:00.839 She later attributed this speedy career progress to her technique 0:12:00.840 --> 0:12:04.560 and style, noting quote, I was the first woman to 0:12:04.640 --> 0:12:07.760 paint cleanly, and that was the basis of my success. 0:12:08.240 --> 0:12:11.560 From one hundred pictures, mine will always stand out, and 0:12:11.640 --> 0:12:14.360 so the galleries began to hang my work in their 0:12:14.400 --> 0:12:18.600 best rooms, always in the middle, because my painting was attractive, 0:12:19.000 --> 0:12:23.480 it was precise, it was finished. So she wasn't wrong 0:12:23.520 --> 0:12:28.560 about aspects of this. Her work is very distinctive. I 0:12:28.600 --> 0:12:30.680 will say, if I could just travel back in time 0:12:30.760 --> 0:12:33.600 and bottle like a tenth of her confidence, that would 0:12:33.640 --> 0:12:36.600 be spectacular. Yeah, that must be a great headspace to 0:12:36.640 --> 0:12:40.920 live in. By the late nineteen twenties, she was making 0:12:41.000 --> 0:12:44.280 enough money to purchase a home on Paris's Left Bank 0:12:44.400 --> 0:12:48.319 and to have it renovated in very luxurious Art Deco style. 0:12:49.320 --> 0:12:52.800 A big factor in that financial success and stability was 0:12:52.800 --> 0:12:55.840 the patronage of doctor Pierre Bouchard, who had made a 0:12:55.880 --> 0:12:59.960 fortune by inventing an indigestion cure, and he had purchased 0:13:00.120 --> 0:13:02.839 some of Dlimpica's work before he offered her a two 0:13:02.960 --> 0:13:06.240 year contract for a series of portraits of his family, 0:13:06.720 --> 0:13:08.880 and she used the money from that deal to set 0:13:08.880 --> 0:13:13.160 herself up in her home, including creating a very beautiful 0:13:13.200 --> 0:13:17.679 studio to work in. Her lavish tastes were not isolated 0:13:17.800 --> 0:13:21.439 to art and design, though Dlimpica became well known as 0:13:21.440 --> 0:13:25.120 a party fixture, on the Paris social scene, and she 0:13:25.400 --> 0:13:29.440 definitely engaged in a really sex, drugs and alcohol lifestyle. 0:13:30.240 --> 0:13:32.680 She was a work hard, play hard kind of woman 0:13:32.720 --> 0:13:35.800 who had an intense work ethic that meant she would 0:13:35.800 --> 0:13:38.960 paint for nine to ten hours at a time and 0:13:39.000 --> 0:13:42.480 then would unwind with some champagne in a massage before 0:13:42.520 --> 0:13:45.959 heading out for the evening. She had affairs with both 0:13:46.000 --> 0:13:48.880 women and men, and a lot of them became subjects 0:13:48.880 --> 0:13:53.600 of her work. That work was inherently sexy. The subjects 0:13:53.640 --> 0:13:57.199 always looked really glamorous. Her portraits of women show them 0:13:57.200 --> 0:14:00.480 in very clingy, satiny garments, so they're by bodies are 0:14:00.480 --> 0:14:04.520 really evident beneath their clothing. A lot of her paintings 0:14:04.600 --> 0:14:07.960 are nudes, where she depicts women's bodies without making it 0:14:08.040 --> 0:14:11.160 about the gaze of the viewer. These scenes are really 0:14:11.320 --> 0:14:15.160 self contained, with the subjects looking anywhere but out from 0:14:15.200 --> 0:14:21.560 the canvas. Yeah, even when her subjects were dressed, often 0:14:21.600 --> 0:14:24.920 there would be like one breast peeking out, or you know, 0:14:25.000 --> 0:14:27.960 you could totally see everything about their body in them. 0:14:29.000 --> 0:14:32.920 Tamara had never been faithful to her husband. She told 0:14:32.960 --> 0:14:35.680 friends a story of meeting a handsome man at a 0:14:35.720 --> 0:14:39.040 reception just before her wedding, and then running into him 0:14:39.080 --> 0:14:42.760 again shortly after she and Today's returned from their honeymoon 0:14:42.840 --> 0:14:45.400 and starting an affair with him. That affair went on 0:14:45.520 --> 0:14:49.040 for quite some time, and that was merely the beginning 0:14:49.200 --> 0:14:52.800 of a long line of affairs and lovers. In a 0:14:52.840 --> 0:14:56.080 lot of these cases, these were sort of long term affairs, 0:14:56.160 --> 0:14:59.680 many of which seemed to go on sort of simultaneously. 0:15:00.480 --> 0:15:03.440 One of her frequent painting subjects Ida Perrot, who we 0:15:03.520 --> 0:15:07.760 mentioned earlier, was her girlfriend for years and years, but 0:15:07.920 --> 0:15:10.120 she would have sort of intense periods where she saw 0:15:10.160 --> 0:15:12.160 one person a whole lot, and then a different person 0:15:12.200 --> 0:15:14.480 a whole lot, and kind of moves through all of 0:15:14.480 --> 0:15:18.160 these people that were part of her circle. This unconventional 0:15:18.160 --> 0:15:20.640 way of life is reflected in a quote of hers 0:15:20.640 --> 0:15:23.920 that is often cited, quote, I live life in the 0:15:23.960 --> 0:15:28.520 margins of society, and the rules of normal society don't apply. 0:15:28.760 --> 0:15:33.280 In the margins. She often would just approach beautiful women 0:15:33.320 --> 0:15:35.680 in the street and ask them to model for her, 0:15:36.040 --> 0:15:38.880 and it was then not unusual for her to begin 0:15:39.040 --> 0:15:43.120 sexual affairs with those models. But Today's was a lot 0:15:43.160 --> 0:15:46.280 more socially conservative than his wife. He seems to have 0:15:46.360 --> 0:15:49.840 tolerated all of Tomorrow's affairs for a while, although he 0:15:50.040 --> 0:15:53.480 really didn't like them, but friction between the two of 0:15:53.520 --> 0:15:57.240 them ultimately escalated to a point where the marriage ended. 0:15:57.920 --> 0:16:01.680 This actually evidence is a double stated. In Tomorrow's life, 0:16:01.760 --> 0:16:05.600 she had a lot of affairs but never left the marriage. Today's, 0:16:05.640 --> 0:16:08.480 in contrast, met another woman, fell in love with her, 0:16:08.760 --> 0:16:12.560 and then left Tomorrow. Tomorrow was really devastated and felt 0:16:12.560 --> 0:16:16.680 completely betrayed. She begged him to reconcile, and eventually he 0:16:16.800 --> 0:16:20.000 did agree and they tried again. The family went to 0:16:20.040 --> 0:16:23.720 Monte Carlo, where Tomorrow often traveled with Casette, to see 0:16:23.720 --> 0:16:26.960 if they could work things out, but instead they had 0:16:27.160 --> 0:16:30.560 just a colossally huge fight in front of their daughter. 0:16:32.120 --> 0:16:36.760 In that fight, he listed every infidelity that Tomorrow had 0:16:36.800 --> 0:16:39.600 ever had in their marriage. She told him it was 0:16:39.680 --> 0:16:42.760 just because he was weak and not enough, and that 0:16:42.880 --> 0:16:45.760 was the end of that. A portrait of Today's that 0:16:45.960 --> 0:16:49.280 Daylimpica had started working on in the late nineteen twenties 0:16:49.320 --> 0:16:52.040 near the end of their marriage, includes one sad and 0:16:52.120 --> 0:16:57.080 pretty telltale detail. The left hand, where his wedding ring 0:16:57.120 --> 0:17:02.040 should have been is unfinished. Tomorrow's relationship with her daughter 0:17:02.240 --> 0:17:06.639 through all of this was not great. Although she used 0:17:06.720 --> 0:17:09.080 Cosette as a model for a lot of her paintings, 0:17:09.119 --> 0:17:12.160 she wasn't exactly what you would call a loving mother. 0:17:13.200 --> 0:17:16.320 She sometimes used her daughter almost as a prop in 0:17:16.359 --> 0:17:20.200 her fabulous lifestyle, but then she wouldn't always acknowledge her 0:17:20.320 --> 0:17:23.719 as her daughter publicly. She often told people while they 0:17:23.720 --> 0:17:27.600 were out that Casette was her younger sister. In the 0:17:27.680 --> 0:17:30.879 preface of a biography of Tomorrow that Casette worked on 0:17:31.000 --> 0:17:34.560 with a co author named Charles Phillips, Phillips writes, quote, 0:17:34.720 --> 0:17:37.680 as anyone who knew both Cosette and her mother will 0:17:37.720 --> 0:17:40.480 tell you the two of them spent oft and on 0:17:40.720 --> 0:17:45.040 a difficult half century together. Tamara was an artist and 0:17:45.119 --> 0:17:48.119 a mother in that order, and her daughter's life, like 0:17:48.160 --> 0:17:51.280 her own, was ruled by the dictum of what we 0:17:51.359 --> 0:17:57.280 call below the artist's hunger work. Before all, although Dlimpica 0:17:57.320 --> 0:18:00.640 had risen to fame in Europe, she was also quickly 0:18:00.720 --> 0:18:04.320 sought after by clients in the United States, and at 0:18:04.400 --> 0:18:06.760 the end of the nineteen twenties she traveled to New 0:18:06.880 --> 0:18:10.840 York to work on several commissions. One of these commissions 0:18:10.920 --> 0:18:14.200 was a wedding portrait of Joan Jeffrey, who was marrying 0:18:14.320 --> 0:18:18.720 Rufus T. Bush. Both Joan and Rufus were from extremely 0:18:18.840 --> 0:18:22.800 wealthy families. Joan's grandfather had made a fortune in the 0:18:22.800 --> 0:18:26.600 early automobile industry, and Rufus's family made their money in 0:18:26.800 --> 0:18:31.679 railway yards. The portrait, though, had a strange life. The 0:18:31.680 --> 0:18:34.679 Bush marriage did not work out, and it ended in 0:18:34.720 --> 0:18:38.880 divorce after only a few years. Dylympicus's painting went into 0:18:38.920 --> 0:18:42.359 storage and it was forgotten. But hang on to that thread, 0:18:42.400 --> 0:18:46.880 it will come back. Yes. Dlimpico was in New York 0:18:46.960 --> 0:18:50.560 on October twenty eighth, nineteen twenty nine, Black Monday, when 0:18:50.560 --> 0:18:53.640 the stock market crashed and sent the US headlong into 0:18:53.640 --> 0:18:57.480 the Great Depression. The Depression happened at the same time 0:18:57.520 --> 0:19:00.640 that a lot of European nations were also ex experiencing 0:19:00.680 --> 0:19:04.159 economic strife. So the world that Tamorrow lived in, and 0:19:04.200 --> 0:19:09.280 specifically the wealthy circles of luxurious partying, had again changed. 0:19:10.040 --> 0:19:13.160 But unlike her experience in having to leave Saint Petersburg 0:19:13.240 --> 0:19:16.800 with nothing, d Olimpica was able to weather the depression 0:19:16.920 --> 0:19:19.880 and continued to paint and make a living as an artist. 0:19:20.920 --> 0:19:24.000 In a moment, we'll talk about a few paintings from 0:19:24.080 --> 0:19:28.160 Olympica's huge body of work. First, though, we'll hear from 0:19:28.200 --> 0:19:41.160 the sponsors that keeps stuffiness in history class going. One 0:19:41.160 --> 0:19:44.720 of the Olympica's most famous paintings is her Self Portrait 0:19:44.800 --> 0:19:49.040 in a green Bugatti, created in nineteen twenty nine. This 0:19:49.160 --> 0:19:52.560 painting is often regarded as an iconic piece of imagery 0:19:52.600 --> 0:19:55.320 that shows a woman who is in charge of herself 0:19:55.359 --> 0:19:59.359 and her future self possessed. It's a close up on 0:19:59.400 --> 0:20:02.600 the artist from the point of view just outside the 0:20:02.640 --> 0:20:05.040 driver's side door and a little in front of it. 0:20:05.680 --> 0:20:08.679 She wears a sleek driving cap with a blonde curl 0:20:08.800 --> 0:20:12.919 just emerging from it on each side. Her eyes look sly, 0:20:13.200 --> 0:20:16.159 and her skin is a creamy white, and her pale 0:20:16.240 --> 0:20:20.160 gray clothing is sort of piled around her. Aside from 0:20:20.160 --> 0:20:22.840 the light green of the car body, the main pop 0:20:22.880 --> 0:20:26.119 of color is the deep red of her lips. This 0:20:26.200 --> 0:20:28.840 painting is a little bit claustrophobic in terms of it 0:20:28.920 --> 0:20:31.240 feeling like a very small space, but it is also 0:20:31.320 --> 0:20:36.280 incredibly striking. But it is very artificial in terms of 0:20:36.320 --> 0:20:40.439 its subject matter. That Self Portrait was a commission for 0:20:40.520 --> 0:20:45.000 the magazine Didama, a German women's magazine. It featured the 0:20:45.040 --> 0:20:49.240 most modern of women and ideas. Dlimpica had met the 0:20:49.280 --> 0:20:52.520 magazine's editor in Monte Carlo while she was on vacation, 0:20:52.960 --> 0:20:56.800 and the commission was born of that meeting. But this 0:20:57.080 --> 0:21:01.040 was not a version of Dlimpica that actually existed. She 0:21:01.040 --> 0:21:03.760 didn't own a Bugatti. She drove her a know her 0:21:03.960 --> 0:21:08.119 car was yellow, not green. She changed up these details 0:21:08.160 --> 0:21:10.160 to create a piece of art that she thought would 0:21:10.160 --> 0:21:14.320 be more alluring, but would also carefully portray her in 0:21:14.359 --> 0:21:18.200 a way that was sort of personality propaganda. It made 0:21:18.200 --> 0:21:22.640 her look wealthier than she really was, and colder portrait 0:21:22.720 --> 0:21:25.120 makes her look like a woman that's really fully in 0:21:25.200 --> 0:21:28.600 control of her life and her world, which is a 0:21:28.800 --> 0:21:33.120 contrast to anybody's reality, really. But this was definitely true 0:21:33.160 --> 0:21:35.680 of Dlimpica, who had created a life that was very 0:21:35.720 --> 0:21:39.720 glittery and very glamorous, but also kind of primed for 0:21:39.880 --> 0:21:42.800 turbulence because of all the drugs and alcohol in the 0:21:43.000 --> 0:21:46.879 stream of lovers that she engaged with. This kind of 0:21:46.920 --> 0:21:49.280 reminds me of we all have that friend who is 0:21:50.840 --> 0:21:55.120 just always embroiled in a million dramas and they will 0:21:55.320 --> 0:21:57.200 swear to you that they hate drama and they don't 0:21:57.200 --> 0:21:59.800 tolerate it, and I'm like, but there's so much though 0:22:00.200 --> 0:22:07.600 you cultivated. Another important painting in her ouvra is portrait 0:22:07.680 --> 0:22:12.040 of Irra Pee, which she completed in nineteen thirty. This 0:22:12.119 --> 0:22:15.840 one's really really striking because, aside from the subject's skin, 0:22:16.640 --> 0:22:19.720 which has, you know, a faint kind of peachy cream tone, 0:22:19.800 --> 0:22:23.399 the dominant tones of the painting are white, black, and red. 0:22:24.280 --> 0:22:27.320 Ira is wearing a white clingy dress and she's holding 0:22:27.359 --> 0:22:32.400 white caliiies, all of which is sharply contrasted with black shadowing. 0:22:33.000 --> 0:22:36.000 But then there is a bright red scarf woven through 0:22:36.000 --> 0:22:39.520 the image, and IRA's fingernails and lips are that same 0:22:39.600 --> 0:22:44.760 color red. Dilipica created portrait of Marjorie Fairy in nineteen 0:22:44.880 --> 0:22:48.720 thirty two. Like the portrait of Era we just mentioned, 0:22:48.800 --> 0:22:52.000 the model is clad and white, but this image feels 0:22:52.000 --> 0:22:55.040 more intimate and that the white is not clothing but 0:22:55.119 --> 0:22:59.439 simply a cloth that's draped around the subject. Her body 0:22:59.520 --> 0:23:02.360 is turned away from the viewer and she looks back 0:23:02.400 --> 0:23:05.439 over her shoulder. Her blue eyes really jump off the 0:23:05.520 --> 0:23:09.400 canvas in an icy stare. She has blonde hair, which 0:23:09.440 --> 0:23:13.760 reflects the cubist influence of Tomorrow's early art education, because 0:23:13.760 --> 0:23:17.200 it looks like it's almost made out of ribbon. There 0:23:17.280 --> 0:23:20.800 is another interesting story of how Tamara ended up married 0:23:20.920 --> 0:23:23.640 a second time, and it is actually tied to one 0:23:23.680 --> 0:23:28.000 of her paintings. She had met the Hungarian baron Raoul 0:23:28.119 --> 0:23:31.760 Kufner in her heyday. He was a fan and a patron, 0:23:31.840 --> 0:23:34.280 and he had purchased a lot of her works before 0:23:34.320 --> 0:23:38.199 they met. In the late nineteen twenties, Tamara painted a 0:23:38.240 --> 0:23:42.480 portrait of the baron's then mistress, Nana de Herrera, as 0:23:42.480 --> 0:23:47.040 a commission for the baron. This portrait was not especially flattering. 0:23:48.000 --> 0:23:51.640 Delipica described not having been very inspired by her subject, 0:23:51.640 --> 0:23:54.600 writing quote, when she came to my studio, she was 0:23:54.680 --> 0:23:58.160 badly dressed. She was not elegant, she was not chiekh. 0:23:58.440 --> 0:24:00.359 I thought, oh no, I don't want to paint her. 0:24:00.720 --> 0:24:05.560 I can't believe that's the famous Nana de Herrera. In 0:24:05.600 --> 0:24:09.400 her account, Tamoraw resolved to try to do the painting anyway, 0:24:10.000 --> 0:24:14.119 and she details getting Nana to undress, in which state 0:24:14.240 --> 0:24:16.960 she was per the artist a little more interesting to 0:24:17.040 --> 0:24:20.679 look at. You can tell looking at this painting that 0:24:20.720 --> 0:24:24.399 she was not very inspired. The most beautiful aspects of 0:24:24.440 --> 0:24:27.520 it are the flowers that dot the scene. But this 0:24:27.680 --> 0:24:31.240 painting is often referred to as an assassination on d 0:24:31.359 --> 0:24:34.919 Lempica's part, because soon Nana was out of the picture 0:24:35.040 --> 0:24:38.560 and the artist was the one dating the baron Tomorrow 0:24:38.680 --> 0:24:41.720 married Koufner a few years later in nineteen thirty four. 0:24:42.640 --> 0:24:45.919 Not long into her second marriage, Tamara's work started to 0:24:46.000 --> 0:24:49.600 fall off. She showed some signs of depression and was 0:24:49.640 --> 0:24:53.119 painting less and less as a result. The works she 0:24:53.240 --> 0:24:56.719 did produce during this time were darker in tone and 0:24:56.880 --> 0:25:00.679 less glamorous than her earlier paintings. It's as though the 0:25:00.720 --> 0:25:04.600 indulgence of the Roaring twenties had really fueled her lifestyle, 0:25:04.760 --> 0:25:09.440