Tamara de Lempicka
Born Tamara Gorksa in Warsaw to wealthy parents. Her father, Boris was a lawyer and her mother, Lavina Gorksa came from a well-to-do family. Tamara was known as a self-willed and domineering child.

Whilst staying with a relative in Petrograd she met and fell in love with a lawyer Tadeusz Lempicka. They were married in 1916. In 1918, whilst living in Russia the Bolsheviks arrested Tadeusz during the Russian revolution. She secured his release and they both fled Russia and moved to Paris. Tadeusz was unable to find work in Paris and it was here that Tamara took painting lessons from Andre Lhote, and enrolled at the Academie de la Grand Chaumiere. Herpaintings began to sell thus enabling her to resume her hedonistic lifestyle.

In 1928 Tamara and Tadeusz were divorced. That year she met Baron Raoul Kuffner and later became his mistress. In 1933 they were married. In view of the growing influence of the Nazis in Europe and an increasing sense of insecurity, Tamara encouraged Kuffner to sell large parts of his estate in Hungary and in 1939 the pair took an extended holiday to America.

Tamara de Lempicka is perhaps the most famous painter of the art deco period. She was a prolific artist and was much sought after as a portrait artist. Tamara was an aristocratic refugee of the Russian Revolution with an erotic style to her art. An icon of the jazz age in France and America, Tamara de Lempicka lived a life of wealth, indiscriminate sexuality and intrigue. She was a true icon of the 1920s. She was a woman of great beauty, extraordinary talent and notoriety. Tamara de Lempicka died in Mexico on the 18th March 1980.