Google Doodle celebrates Tamara de Lempicka’s 120th Birthday

Born in Warsaw on May 16, 1889, as Maria Gorska, also known as Tamara De Lempicka, her father was Boris Gurwik-Gorski, a Russian Jewish attorney for a French trading company, and her mother was Malwina Decler, a Polish socialite.

Tamara de Lempicka was a Polish painter who was active in the 1920s and 1930s, she was best known for her Art-Deco portraits of aristocrats and the wealthy. She was also known for her highly stylized paintings of nudes. She spent most of her working life in France and United States.

Tamara De Lempicka was the lone traditional painter in the entirety of the Art Deco style. The source of inspiration for her paintings can be ranged from the Italian Renaissance painting to modern day Ingres. The most influential inspiration for Lempicka was the desire to capitalize on her social connections to create a niche for her portraiture.

Lempicka described her own work as "I was the first woman to make clear paintings". She was the pioneer of Art Deco style paintings, unlike other artists who often focuses on painting large murals with crowds of subjects, she focused exclusively on the portraits.

Tamara De Lempicka offered a new image of modern women through her paintings, her artistic output has been assessed as inseparable from her larger than life character and more significantly, her gender.