Welcome to Madrid

The Gaviria Palace is housing a solo exhibition of Tamara de Lempicka, the Polish painter known for her Art Deco portraits of aristocrats and the wealthy. The event is organised by Arthemisia, Italy’s leading company in the production, organisation and staging of art exhibitions.

Active in the 1920s and 1930s, Tamara de Lempicka is a major figure of Art Deco, the style that marked the development of the visual arts before and after World War I. Her portraits (many of them celebrity portraits) show sophistication, elegance, glamour and modernity, under the influence of Neoclassical painters like Ingres and the Renaissance (Botticelli and Mannerism).

Lempicka portrayed aristocrats and the wealthy. In so doing, she captured the decadence of European aristocracy in the aftermath of the Great War. Her art fed on her libertine lifestyle: hedonism, cocaine and libido (she was bisexual) to illustrate the artistic and social life of Paris in the period between the Wars.

This is the first Lempicka retrospective held in Madrid – her return to Spain after visiting the country in 1932 and feeling the influence of Spanish artists and the art scene of the day. The exhibition has been staged by Arthemisia at the Royal Palace of Milan (2006), the Pinacothèque de Paris (2013), the Palazzo Chiablese in Turin (2015) and the Palazzo Forti in Verona (2015).