Tamara de Lempicka

Tamara de Lemicka was a trailblazer with an incredible, fresh style that really defined and influenced the development of Art Deco. She lived a life that was focused on originality, both artistically and personally.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.

• 0:04Speaker 01

  Granger knows if you're a procurement manager at an industrial manufacturing facility, you're balancing inventory and budget while sourcing critical supplies across the operation. Too much inventory? Cost climb. Too little? Production slows. Granger's $2 billion in on-hand inventory helps you get what you need when you need it, so you can help keep budgets balanced and lines moving. Call 1-800-GRANGER, click Granger.com, or just stop by. Granger, for the ones who get it done.

• 0:34Speaker 02

  Small businesses are the pulse of every community. They bring people together, create opportunities, and drive growth. Chase for Business helps business owners like you with personalized guidance and convenient digital tools all in one place. With that guidance and your determination, you can take your business further and help build a brighter future for your community. Learn more at chase.com/business. Chase for Business: Make More of What's Yours. The Chase mobile app is available for select mobile devices. Message and data rates may apply. JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A., member FDIC. Copyright 2026 JPMorgan Chase and Company.

• 1:17Holly Frey?

  Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production of iHeartRadio.

• 1:27Holly Frey?

  Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly Frey. And I'm Tracy V. Wilson. And today, we're going to talk about an artist who has kind of been on my radar for a while, but definitely as a bit of a backrounder. And then one of my very dearest friends suggested her because there is a really fabulous exhibit of her work going on at the DeYoung Museum in San Francisco right now, not for a whole lot longer. It's up until February 9th, and I 100% scrambled for a minute to see if I could make it out there, but my schedule is not being cooperative with that plan. So I ordered a bunch of books and spent a ton of time researching her instead.

• 2:09Holly Frey?

  So many thanks to my dear friend Kristin, who I adore, for setting this idea in motion. Tamara de Lempicka was a trailblazer with an incredible, very fresh style that really defined and influenced the Art Deco movement. She lived a life that was focused on originality, both artistic and personally. She is a lot of personality. Heads up, as we talk about her, that there is very brief mention of domestic violence in this episode.

• 2:40Tracy V. Wilson?

  Tamara Gruick Gorska was born, according to her own account, on May 16th, 1898, probably in Warsaw, Poland. Her parents were Boris Gruick Gorski, who was a lawyer, and Malvina Gruick Gorska. As she always told her personal story, her family moved to Moscow when she was still very, very tiny. But there's really been a lot of debate about whether that was the case or whether she was actually born there after the family moved. The timing of that move also suggests that she would have been born several years earlier than she actually claimed. So it's now believed that she was actually born in 1894.

• 3:22Tracy V. Wilson?

  To add even more confusion to the story of her entry into the world, her first name appears in three different ways. In addition to Tamara, sometimes this is recorded as Maria and other times as Rosalia. There are also recorded entries where the name is some combination of two or those three possible first names. She had an older brother named Stanzick and eventually a baby sister named Adrian.

• 3:52Holly Frey?

  There are additional question marks in Tamara's childhood, some of them quite tragic. Her father Boris possibly died by suicide, although Tamara always stated that her parents had divorced while she was still young. If you're starting to think, wow, she told a lot of stories that don't really always connect with what's verifiable, that is accurate, and you might want to just be accustomed to that. Boris was not part of her life, though, after her very earliest years. Regardless of the nature of the end of the marriage, Malvina took her children and moved back to Warsaw, where she had grown up and where her family, which was quite wealthy, assisted in raising the children.

• 4:31Tracy V. Wilson?

  As a teenager, Tamara benefited from her relationship with her grandmother Clementina in that the two of them traveled extensively together. Tamara got a lot of exposure to arts and culture. And because of her family's wealth, she was also able to attend a Swiss finishing school.

• 4:48Holly Frey?

  While staying with relatives in St. Petersburg sometime between the ages of 18 and 21, Tamara met a young man named Tadeusz Lepicki. And Tadeusz was handsome, he was a lawyer, he was very prominent in the St. Petersburg social scene. And the pair quickly fell in love and got married. Things seemed perfect at this point. The couple ran in very stylish and wealthy circles. And Tadeusz was on track to get an appointment as a lawyer for the czar.

• 5:19Tracy V. Wilson?

  But that meant that when the Russian Revolution started in 1917 and the Bolsheviks came to power, Tadeusz was on the wrong side of the revolution and he was arrested. The exact reason is a little unclear. He was arrested in the middle of the night and Tamara was not told why. Tamara's family had already left Poland, which was occupied, and they had headed to Copenhagen. But Tamara stayed in St. Petersburg where the couple had been living and looked for him. She even visited prisons to see if he was there. That didn't turn up anything, so she started asking anybody she could for help and finally got some assistance from the Swedish consul. It's not really spelled out anywhere, but it seems like she may have had an affair

• 6:03Tracy V. Wilson?

  with the consul. He promised that he was working on Tadeusz's case, but also urged her to get out of Russia, which she eventually agreed to. He got her to Finland and then the consul returned to Russia with the promise that he would keep working on freeing her husband. Tamara went to Copenhagen and eventually the consul was able to secure Tadeusz's release. He was able to join his wife. And from there, they moved to Paris and sort of resettled there. They had their daughter, Maria Kristina. She was born in Paris shortly after the move and they called her Kizet. She would become a huge part, not just of Tamara's life, but also of her art.

• 6:45Holly Frey?

  Yeah, there is some insinuation in most biographies that that consul kind of was like, hey, I will help you if you help me by.

• 6:56Holly Frey?

  Sexual favors.

• 6:59Holly Frey?

  So Tracy just referenced Tamara's art career and that art career began in Paris. At this point, the family had nothing and it seems that Tadeus was really struggling regarding a job. Tamara's sister Adrienne is often credited with advising her sibling. This is written different ways, but basically get a career and you won't have to depend on your husband. And this sort of makes it sound like Tadeus was just kind of kicking around like a deadbeat, but it is a lot more complicated than that. He had just spent six weeks as a political prisoner and he was very changed by that experience. He was not the happy-go-lucky playboy that he had been when the couple met.

• 7:44Holly Frey?

  But Tamara also didn't have any patience for this change in personality, although she did step up to financially support the family. Tadeus, for his part, was not kind to her either. He turned down jobs that he was offered because he felt they were beneath him and this led to arguing and that arguing escalated to the point where Tadeus became physically abusive. Both of these people were miserable.

• 8:11Tracy V. Wilson?

  As she was looking for ways to bring in an income through art, she was incredibly savvy about doing so. One of the things she did at this time was to add the "duh" to her name to become Tamara de Lempicka. She had a strong knowledge of art from her travels to museums around the world with her grandmother, but in Paris, she started studying art formally with Maurice Denis and André Lotte. Lotte was particularly influential on her, although she did soon go past him in skill.

• 8:41Holly Frey?

  According to an interview with Tamara's great-granddaughter and estate manager Marisa de Lempicka, that was part of a short documentary prepared by the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco in connection with that exhibit we mentioned at the top of the show. Tamara once told her, quote, "You know, Marisa, when we left St. Petersburg, we had to flee. We lost our house, we lost many of our friends, we lost all of our possessions. We arrived in Paris with nothing. I decided I was going to become the most important painter in Paris and after every painting I would sell, I would buy myself a diamond bracelet." So that may sound like a frivolous move. And certainly, Tamara was a very showy human being.

• 9:25Holly Frey?

  She was like such a peacock in all the great ways. But as her great granddaughter, Marissa, goes on to explain, those purchases actually achieved two things. So one, that stack of bracelets that did grow on her forearm telegraphed how successful she was. And two, those valuable pieces of jewelry served as a sort of insurance policy. Tamara knew that if her life once again turned on a dime like it had in Russia and she was left with nothing, she could use those bracelets as a potential financial cushion, basically selling them off to live.

• 10:02Tracy V. Wilson?

  After we take a quick sponsor break, we'll talk about the way her career really took off.

• 10:10Holly Frey?

  A rare disease diagnosis can change your life, but it doesn't have to define your future. Tune in for season seven of Untold Stories, Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition, a Ruby Studio production in partnership with Argenx. Hosted by public health and policy expert Dr. Martine Hackett, Untold Stories: Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition pushes the conversation within the rare disease community forward. Featuring guests living with MG, CIDP, myositis, SMA, and other rare autoimmune conditions, each episode explores hope, progress, and connection. How does research create new opportunities? How do shared experiences help light the way forward? How do we best show up for each other?

• 10:55Holly Frey?

  Tune in to find out. Listen on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 11:05Speaker 05

  OnDeck is built to back small businesses like yours. Whether you're buying equipment, expanding your team, or bridging cash flow gaps, OnDeck's loans up to $400,000 help make it happen fast. Rated A+ by the Better Business Bureau and earning thousands of five-star TrustPilot reviews, OnDeck delivers funding you can count on. Apply in minutes at ondeck.com. Depending on certain loan Your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 11:34Speaker 06

  Hey, it's Covino and Rich Davis from Covino and Rich. Buy smart, drive for less and trade for more. That's Toyota affordability. And it starts with a great deal on an off-road ready Tacoma or half-ton Tundra, two of Toyota's most capable and longest-lasting trucks. Combining power for work, tech for adventures and style in between. Built on reputation for quality and reliability. Toyota trucks are known for holding their value, which can mean big savings when it's time for your next Toyota. So get a great deal today and great value tomorrow. Shop toyota.com for more. Toyota, let's go places.

• 12:15Holly Frey?

  By 1922, DeLimpica was ready to start showing her work. The first painting that she became known for in Paris was Portrait of a Young Lady in a Blue Dress. This is an image of a woman named Ira Perro, with whom Tamara had a romantic relationship. This painting doesn't feature the very stylized appearance that DeLimpica's work would eventually become known for. It shows Ira from the waist up, and she appears to be sitting and wearing a very simple, drapey blue garment. It says it's a blue dress. Honestly, it looks like a piece of fabric draped across her. Ira's dark hair is wavy. It looks slightly tousled. It's framing her face.

• 12:59Holly Frey?

  And her face has an orange-red lip, and her dark eyes are outlined with coal. Compared to DeLimpica's later work, it looks quite naturalist. Another painting, Portrait of a Polo Player, is most likely a painting of her husband, Tadeus. This image is also a pretty straightforward portrait. The man that it features is facing slightly down and away from the viewer, so his eyes are shadowed and his expression is fairly neutral. His clothes are shades of beiges, tans and browns. Another painting from her early showings, once again, shows a person close to her life. This time, her daughter, Kizet. This painting is called Portrait of a Little Girl with Her Teddy Bear,

• 13:44Holly Frey?

  and it shows Kizet sitting down with her teddy bear seated next to her. One of her arms is draped around the bear's shoulders. They kind of look like they're sitting on a stoop or a set of stairs. This painting is a little less detailed than the other two we've mentioned, with more expressive brushstrokes that are still dramatic in contrast, but they're often softer than in the era in today's portraits. Uh, she doesn't use outlines in this one, so all of the vibes are very soft on it. Overall, D'Olmpica's early works reflect the development of her personal style after her studies with Denis, who was a symbolist, and Lot, who combined cubism with more natural styles. And her early art shows that she is working towards becoming

• 14:28Holly Frey?

  a unique voice in the Paris art scene. She later noted, and she said this many times in a variety of ways, "My goal is never to copy. Create a new style, clear luminous colors, and feel the elegance of the models."

• 14:45Tracy V. Wilson?

  Over the next several years, D'Olmpica's singular style started to really coalesce in her work. Throughout the years from 1922 to 1924, she was showing her work alongside other artists in salons. But just a few years into her career, she also had her first solo show. That was in Milan. After the Milan exhibit, Tamara's rise to fame as an artist was quite rapid. She later attributed this speedy career progress to her technique and style, noting, quote, "I was the first woman to paint cleanly, and that was the basis of my success. From a hundred pictures, mine will always stand out. And so the galleries began to hang my work in their best rooms,

• 15:30Tracy V. Wilson?

  always in the middle, because my painting was attractive. It was precise. It was finished." So she wasn't wrong about aspects of this. Her work is very distinctive.

• 15:44Holly Frey?

  I will say, if I could just travel back in time and bottle like a tenth of her confidence, that would be spectacular.

• 15:50Tracy V. Wilson?

  Yeah.

• 15:50Holly Frey?

  That must be a great headspace to live in. By the late 1920s, she was making enough money to purchase a home on Paris's left bank and to have it renovated in very luxurious Art Deco style. A big factor in that financial success and stability was the patronage of Dr. Pierre Bucard, who had made a fortune by inventing an indigestion cure. And he had purchased some of D'Olmpica's work before he offered her a two-year contract for a series of portraits of his family. And she used the money from that deal to set herself up in her home, including creating a very beautiful studio to work in.

• 16:30Tracy V. Wilson?

  Her lavish tastes were not isolated to art and design, though. D'Olmpica became well-known as a party fixture on the Paris social scene, and she definitely engaged in a really sex, drugs, and alcohol lifestyle. She was a work hard, play hard kind of woman who had an intense work ethic that meant she would paint for nine to 10 hours at a time and then would unwind with some champagne and a massage before heading out for the evening. She had affairs with both women and men, and a lot of them became subjects of her work. That work was inherently sexy. The subjects always looked really glamorous. Her portraits of women showed them in very clingy, satiny garments, so their bodies

• 17:15Tracy V. Wilson?

  are really evident beneath their clothing. A lot of her paintings are nudes, where she depicts women's bodies without making it about the gaze of the viewer. These scenes are really self-contained, with the subjects looking anywhere but out from the canvas.

• 17:32Holly Frey?

  Yeah, even when her subjects were dressed, often there would be like one breast peeking out, or, you know, you could totally see everything about their body in them. Tamara had never been faithful to her husband. She told friends a story of meeting a handsome man at a reception just before her wedding, and then running into him again shortly after she and Today's returned from their honeymoon and starting an affair with him. That affair went on for quite some time. And that was merely the beginning of a long line of affairs and lovers. In a lot of these cases, these were sort of long-term affairs, many of which seemed to go on sort of simultaneously.

• 18:16Holly Frey?

  One of her frequent painting subjects, Ira Perro, who we mentioned earlier, was her girlfriend for years and years. But she would have sort of intense periods where she saw one person a whole lot and then a different person a whole lot and kind of move through all of these people that were part of her circle. This unconventional way of life is reflected in a quote of hers that is often cited. Quote, "I live life in the margins of society, and the rules of normal society don't apply in the margins." She often would just approach beautiful women in the street and ask them to model for her, and it was then not unusual for her to begin sexual affairs with those models.

• 18:57Tracy V. Wilson?

  But Today's was a lot more socially conservative than his wife. He seems to have tolerated all of Tamara's affairs for a while, although he really didn't like them. But friction between the two of them ultimately escalated to a point where the marriage ended. This actually evidences a double standard in Tamara's life. She had a lot of affairs, but never left the marriage. Today's, in contrast, met another woman, fell in love with her, and then left Tamara. Tamara was really devastated and felt completely betrayed. She begged him to reconcile, and eventually he did agree, and they tried again. The family went to Monte Carlo, where Tamara often traveled with Cosette to see if they

• 19:39Tracy V. Wilson?

  could work things out, but instead, they had just a colossally huge fight in front of their daughter. In that fight, he listed every infidelity that Tamara had ever had in their marriage. She told him it was just because he was weak and not enough. And that was the end of that. A portrait of today's that D'Olimpica had started working on in the late 1920s, near the end of their marriage, includes one sad and pretty telltale detail. The left hand where his wedding ring should have been is unfinished.

• 20:15Holly Frey?

  Tamara's relationship with her daughter through all of this was not great. Although she used Cosette as a model for a lot of her paintings, she wasn't exactly what you would call a loving mother. She sometimes used her daughter almost as a prop in her fabulous lifestyle, but then she wouldn't always acknowledge her as her daughter publicly. She often told people while they were out that Cosette was her younger sister. In the preface of a biography of Tamara that Cosette worked on with a co-author named Charles Phillips, Phillips writes, quote, "As anyone who knew both Cosette and her mother will tell you, the two of them spent off and on a difficult half-century together.

• 20:59Holly Frey?

  Tamara was an artist and a mother in that order, and her daughter's life, like her own, was ruled by the dictum of what we call below the artist's hunger: work before all."

• 21:11Tracy V. Wilson?

  Although D'Olimpica had risen to fame in Europe, she was also quickly sought after by clients in the United States. And at the end of the 1920s, she traveled to New York to work on several commissions. One of these commissions was a wedding portrait of Joan Jeffrey, who was marrying Rufus T. Bush. Both Joan and Rufus were from extremely wealthy families. Joan's grandfather had made a fortune in the early automobile industry, and Rufus's family made their money in railway yards. The portrait, though, had a strange life. The Bush marriage did not work out, and it ended in divorce after only a few years.

• 21:52Tracy V. Wilson?

  D'Olimpica's painting went into storage and it was forgotten, but hang on to that thread, it will come back.

• 21:59Holly Frey?

  Yes. Dolympica was in New York on October 28th, 1929, Black Monday, when the stock market crashed and sent the US headlong into the Great Depression. The Depression happened at the same time that a lot of European nations were also experiencing economic strife. So the world that Tamara lived in, and specifically the wealthy circles of luxurious partying, had again changed. But unlike her experience in having to leave St. Petersburg with nothing, Dolympica was able to weather the Depression and continued to paint and make a living as an artist.

• 22:36Tracy V. Wilson?

  In a moment, we'll talk about a few paintings from Dolympica's huge body of work. First, though, we'll hear from the sponsors that keep Stuff You Missed in History Class going.

• 22:51Holly Frey?

  A rare disease diagnosis can change your life, but it doesn't have to define your future. Tune in for season seven of Untold Stories: Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition, a Ruby Studio production in partnership with Argenx. Hosted by public health and policy expert Dr. Martine Hackett, Untold Stories: Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition pushes the conversation within the rare disease community forward. Featuring guests living with MG, CIDP, myositis, SMA, and other rare autoimmune conditions, each episode explores hope, progress, and connection. How does research create new opportunities? How do shared experiences help light the way forward? How do we best show up for each other? Tune

• 23:36Holly Frey?

  in to find out. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 23:46Speaker 07

  Cash Flow Crunch. OnDeck's small business line of credit gives your business immediate access to funds, up to $200,000, right when you need it. Cover seasonal dips, manage payroll, restock inventory, or tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat. With flexible draws, transparent pricing, and control over repayment, get funded quickly and confidently. Apply today at ondeck.com. Funds could be available as soon as tomorrow. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 24:16Holly Frey?

  This is Shirley Strawberry from the Steve Harvey Morning Show. Buy smart, drive for less, and trade for more. That's Toyota affordability. And it starts with a great deal on An all-wheel-drive Camry, Corolla Cross, or a Corolla sedan with the latest features and tech. Or test drive a spacious Grand Highlander or Adventure Ready RAV4. And with so many hybrid models available, you can enjoy longer trips without all the stops. While Toyota's legendary resale value means you could get more at trade-in, get a great deal today and a great value tomorrow. Shop toyota.com for deals and details. Toyota, let's go places.

• 25:03Holly Frey?

  One of D'Olimpica's most famous paintings is her self-portrait in a green Bugatti, created in 1929. This painting is often regarded as an iconic piece of imagery that shows a woman who is in charge of herself and her future self-possessed. It's a close-up on the artist driving from the point of view just outside the driver's side door and a little in front of it. She wears a sleek driving cap with a blonde curl just emerging from it on each side. Her eyes look sly and her skin is a creamy white and her pale gray clothing is sort of piled around her. Aside from the light green of the car body, the main pop of color is the deep red of her lips.

• 25:48Holly Frey?

  This painting is a little bit claustrophobic in terms of it feeling like a very small space, but it is also incredibly striking. But it is very artificial in terms of its subject matter. That self-portrait was a commission for the magazine Didama, a German women's magazine. It featured the most modern of women and ideas. D'Olimpica had met the magazine's editor in Monte Carlo while she was on vacation and the commission was born of that meeting. But this was not a version of D'Olimpica that actually existed. She didn't own a Bugatti. She drove her own. Her car was yellow, not green. She changed up these details to create a piece of art

• 26:32Holly Frey?

  that she thought would be more alluring, but would also carefully portray her in a way that was sort of personality propaganda. It made her look wealthier than she really was and colder.

• 26:44Tracy V. Wilson?

  Portrait makes her look like a woman that's really fully in control of her life and her world, which is a contrast to anybody's reality, really. But this was definitely true of Dolympica, who had created a life that was very glittery and very glamorous, but also kind of primed for turbulence because of all the drugs and alcohol in this stream of lovers that she engaged with.

• 27:08Holly Frey?

  This kind of reminds me of, we all have that friend who is just always embroiled in a million dramas and they will swear to you that they hate drama and they don't tolerate it. And I'm like, but

• 27:21Tracy V. Wilson?

  There's so much, though.

• 27:22Holly Frey?

  You cultivate it.

• 27:26Holly Frey?

  Another important painting in her oeuvre is Portrait of Ira P., which she completed in 1930. This was really, really striking because aside from the subject's skin, which has, you know, a faint kind of peachy cream tone, the dominant tones of the painting are white, black, and red. Ira is wearing a white clingy dress and she's holding white calla lilies, all of which is sharply contrasted with black shadowing. But then there is a bright red scarf woven through the image and Ira's fingernails and lips are that same color red.

• 28:03Tracy V. Wilson?

  Dolympica created Portrait of Marjorie Ferry in 1932. Like the Portrait of Ira we just mentioned, the model is clad in white, but this image feels more intimate in that the white is not clothing, but simply a cloth that's draped around the subject. Her body is turned away from the viewer and she looks back over her shoulder. Her blue eyes really jump off the canvas in an icy stare. She has blonde hair, which reflects the cubist influence of Tamara's early art education, because it looks like it's almost made out of ribbon.

• 28:39Holly Frey?

  There is another interesting story of how Tamara ended up married a second time, and it is actually tied to one of her paintings. She had met the Hungarian Baron Raul Kufner in her heyday. He was a fan and a patron and he had purchased a lot of her works before they met. In the late 1920s, Tamara painted a portrait of the Baron's then mistress, Nana de Herrera, as a commission for the Baron. This portrait was not especially flattering. Dolympica described not having been very inspired by her subject, writing, quote, "When she came to my studio, she was badly dressed. She was not elegant. She was not chic. I thought, oh, no, I don't want to paint her.

• 29:23Holly Frey?

  I can't believe that's the famous Nana de Herrera." In her account, Tamara resolved to try to do the painting anyway, and she details getting Nana to undress, in which state she was, per the artist, a little more interesting to look at. You can tell, looking at this painting, that she was not very inspired. The most beautiful aspects of it are the flowers that dot the scene. But this painting is often referred to as an assassination on Dolympica's part, because soon, Nana was out of the picture and the artist was the one dating the Baron. Tamara married Kufner a few years later, in 1934.

• 30:05Tracy V. Wilson?

  Not long into her second marriage, Tamara's work started to fall off. She showed some signs of depression and was painting less and less as a result. The works she did produce during this time were darker in tone and less glamorous than her earlier paintings. It's as though the indulgence of the roaring 20s had really fueled her lifestyle, and as that unsustainable lifestyle of constant parties and hedonism faded in Paris, it took some of her spark with it.

• 30:37Holly Frey?

  One of her post-1920s paintings, Beggar with Mandolin, which she created in 1935, reflects this shift. It depicts an older man with white hair playing his mandolin. His face is a lot more realistic than most of her glamorous paintings, and his eyes, which look up and to the left of the painting, are sorrowful, and they're set into a face that is puffy and wrinkled. He wears many layers of clothing, and while he doesn't actually look, as the title suggests, like someone destitute, the overall effect is a sad one. Gone is the glitzy verve of her more famous works from the prior decade.

• 31:18Tracy V. Wilson?

  I feel like this is also all a reflection of the economic crisis that was happening globally.

• 31:23Holly Frey?

  100%.

• 31:25Tracy V. Wilson?

  Uh, as World War II looms, Tamara and the Baron decided to leave Europe and move to the United States. They bought a home in Connecticut, although Dolympica was really all the time, on the go, bouncing from coast to coast. She was still very much in demand as an artist, and there were multiple exhibitions of her work in Los Angeles and New York. But once the United States entered into World War II, the art exhibitions really dwindled.

• 31:53Holly Frey?

  Yeah, it wasn't just her. Everybody was kind of, you know, galleries were not staging big exhibits anymore. It was not a time to worry about that. Everybody was really focused on the war effort. But then after the war, Dolympica, who was hoping to find a new voice to match this new era, really foundered. Her work moved into abstract paintings that shared some of the shapes and line forms of her portraiture, but they didn't generally feature any sort of subject. And these did not go over especially well. Like, if someone wanted a Dolympica and they got this, it was not what they were hoping for or anticipating. And her popularity really dwindled.

• 32:36Tracy V. Wilson?

  Roel died in 1962 after having a heart attack aboard a cruise ship, and Tamara was really devastated. The two of them had been married for 30 years at that point. She really unmoored herself from the New York scene completely after he died. She sold all of her things and started traveling constantly. She circled the globe on a series of cruises, three times, actually, but if she was looking for some sort of solace out in the world, it does not seem like she found it. After all of these cruises, she moved in with Cosette and her husband and their two daughters. They were living in Houston, Texas. She traded Cosette pretty poorly while they lived in Texas together. Tamara

• 33:21Tracy V. Wilson?

  seemed to think that Cosette was her personal assistant and expected her to just handle everything from her finances to her travel arrangements. While Tamara tried to take over Cosette's social circle, Even people who were very close to Tamara during this time have acknowledged that her behavior toward her daughter was hypercritical and often really cruel. She dictated the way that Cosette had to dress and style her hair if she wanted to be seen in public with her mother and was just generally very deeply controlling.

• 33:55Holly Frey?

  DeLimpica also seemed to go through the kind of challenges that often befall people as they age and struggle to find their way in an ever-changing world. She often bemoaned that her art was suffering because she couldn't get the same kinds of art supplies that she could purchase years earlier in Paris. She even made her son-in-law, who was a scientist, mix paints for her, but she was never pleased with the outcome. And she also often stated that people had changed so much from when she was young and that they were no longer stylish or educated, or that everyone was now of poor breeding.

• 34:31Tracy V. Wilson?

  In 1972, there was a retrospective exhibit of Tamara's works mounted in Paris, and this breathed life into her career briefly, but it did not garner the level of popularity that she probably hoped for. Then, when there was a potential follow-up exhibition in New York, Tamara made a lot of demands about the gallery that was interested in exhibiting her work, including that it would have to knock through an exterior wall to put in a new window. Her behavior really soured the gallery on the deal. This New York exhibit never happens.

• 35:08Holly Frey?

  In 1978, DeLimpica moved to Cuernavaca, Mexico, to retire. She had visited Cuernavaca many times, and as her place in the art worlds of New York, Paris, and other cities had dwindled, this had really become where she went for solace. She lived there the rest of her life in a home called Trez Bambu. She often harangued Cosette to come and visit her and told her daughter that she felt abandoned. But Cosette was dealing with her own family situation. Her husband had cancer, and in prioritizing him and his care, Cosette had, according to Tamara, betrayed her mother.

• 35:48Holly Frey?

  D'Olimpica frequently rewrote her will during this time, often cutting Cosette out completely and insisting that her friends would instead get everything when she died.

• 35:58Tracy V. Wilson?

  When Cosette's husband Harold died in 1979, Cosette, whose daughters were grown, moved to Cornovaca to be with her mother and take care of her full time as her health was declining. It was just a few months later, on March 18, 1980, that Tamara D'Olimpica died in her sleep. She had already made all of the arrangements for her funeral and paid for everything, but her final wish was to have her ashes spread at the volcano Pobocatépèl, which her daughter and several of her friends managed to do by helicopter.

• 36:32Holly Frey?

  There have been a number of fairly triumphant codas to Tamara D'Olimpica's life and career since her passing. We mentioned earlier that portrait of Mrs. Joan Jeffrey Bush that was forgotten. That painting stayed stored away untouched for almost six decades. After Tamara's daughter Cosette published the first edition of her book about her mother, Passion by Design, in 1987, Joan's daughter read it and realized that their family might still have that lost painting. That lost art, which wasn't so much lost as just forgotten, was located and in the intervening years commanded $4.6 million at auction. That auction took place more than 20 years ago,

• 37:17Holly Frey?

  so the value of the piece will have risen significantly. And it is a very spectacular piece with the subject clad in red, and it almost looks like it could have been painted in the 1980s in the style of Patrick Magel.

• 37:30Tracy V. Wilson?

  That story and another about a lost D'Olimpica were shared by her great granddaughter, Marissa D'Olimpica, in a new foreword to Cosette's book when it was reissued in 2020.

• 37:44Tracy V. Wilson?

  The second story of lost art is actually one of a theft in 2009. Another painting that Tamara made the same year as the portrait of Mrs. Bush. This one titled La Musicienne was stolen from the sharing a museum of realist art in the Netherlands. That theft included another painting, which was Adolescence by Salvador Dali. In a remarkable twist, though, these two artworks are in the tiny, single-digit percentage of stolen art that's actually successfully recovered. Both of them were found by private investigator Arthur Brand, who specializes in art recovery and was able to locate the work in the hands of a criminal organization and negotiate

• 38:28Tracy V. Wilson?

  with them to get them back. I really feel like we've talked about something that Arthur Brand has recovered on Unearthed before.

• 38:36Holly Frey?

  Probably because his name pops up everywhere when you talk about art. We did a season on Criminilia of Art Heist and he came up several times.

• 38:44Tracy V. Wilson?

  Yeah, so this piece was also sold at auction in 2018 for a whopping $9 million.

• 38:51Holly Frey?

  In February 2020, Christie's put Dolympica's 1932 painting Portrait of Marjorie Ferry up for auction with an expected range of 8 million to 12 million pounds where they thought it was going to sell. It sold for 16,380,000 pounds, equivalent to 21.2 million dollars. The only other woman artist who has sold a piece for more than that is Georgia O'Keeffe, whose Jimson weed/white flower number one sold her 44.4 million in 2014.

• 39:25Tracy V. Wilson?

  Not all the modern critics of her work have been ebullient, however. In 2004, Fiona McCarthy wrote in The Guardian, quote, "Dolympica was an artist of the fascist superworld. Her portraits were allied to the call to order movement, the return to monumental realism in European art. Her art exudes the dark and dubious glamour of authoritarian discipline. When she paints the Duchess de la Salle, the Duchess is in jack boots, one hand thrust in her pocket in an attitude of menace. It is a tremendous portrait, painted with the sheer theatrical enjoyment, the unerring sense of decor of Dolympica's best work."

• 40:10Tracy V. Wilson?

  So even in the beauty, some see a very clear dark note.

• 40:15Holly Frey?

  Dolympica continues to captivate and inspire today. Madonna has used her art in music videos and as stage decor in live shows. So if you are a fan of Madonna, you've seen Dolympica's work for sure. But she has also inspired fashion, like the Giorgio Armani Privé Fall/Winter 2022/2023 collection. And there have been stage adaptations of her life story. And last year, a documentary about her titled The True Story of Tamara Dolympica and the Art of Survival. That is limited enough availability that I have not been able to see it. Dolympica, while she is a very complicated character, remains very iconic and her work

• 40:59Holly Frey?

  is instantly recognizable. And she has a lot of very dedicated fans, all of which probably would have delighted her.

• 41:07Tracy V. Wilson?

  Do you also have some listener mail?

• 41:09Holly Frey?

  You know that I do. This listener mail is in fact about Christmas. This is from our listener Kira. I hope I am saying your name correctly, who writes, hi, Tracy and Holly. Thank you for all the wonderful hours of entertainment and knowledge. I just listened to your episode on Christmas decorations. I have never had a Christmas Eve without live candles on the tree. Live candles are still very common in Denmark with about 40% of households having live candles on the Christmas tree. While it is more dangerous than electric lights, I want to share why it is not as dangerous as it might seem.

• 41:50Holly Frey?

  The lights are special Christmas tree lights, slightly larger than a birthday cake light with wings that stop about a centimeter before the end of the candle, thus preventing the candles from burning down. We usually only put up our tree on the 23rd, so it is still fresh. We never leave a tree with lights on without observation and always have a bucket of water, et cetera, close by. Never had to use it. For me, the lighting of the Christmas tree is the most special part of Christmas. While I see the tree during the day, in the evening, everyone goes into a different room while one person lights the tree. Then we all go in to look at the tree and join hands. I'm choked up. This sounds so sweet. Walking around the Christmas

• 42:33Holly Frey?

  tree, singing Christmas songs and carols. Beautiful. Kira attached photos of her tree. There's also a sparkler on top, which is, she says, a tradition in her family, but less common in general. It's very, very beautiful, I will say, and her kids look just full of wonder. It also still terrifies me. I don't know if I have just grown up in the, the US era of UL safety tags on everything that tell me that it's all going to go up in flames, that I'm like, I don't, I don't know. But it's so beautiful. I completely understand. And it is one of those things where I bet if it is something that happens for like an hour in the evening, it feels extra magical and beautiful. So, thank you, thank you, thank

• 43:17Holly Frey?

  you so much for sharing this with us. It got me choked up. It's so sweet. And it is quite, quite beautiful, even if I'm scared. You can write to us and make me cry if you'd like at [email protected]. You can also subscribe to the podcast on the iHeartRadio app or anywhere you listen to your favorite shows.

• 43:41Tracy V. Wilson?

  Stuff You Missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

• 43:55Speaker 01

  This is Shirley Strawberry from the Steve Harvey Morning Show. Buy smart, drive for less, and trade for more. That's Toyota affordability. And it starts with a great deal on an all-wheel-drive Camry, Corolla Cross, or a

• 44:10Speaker 05

  Corolla sedan with the latest features and tech. Or test drive a spacious Grand Highlander or adventure-ready RAV4. And with so many hybrid models available, you can enjoy longer trips without all the stops. While Toyota's legendary resale value means you could get more at trade-in, get a great deal today and a great value tomorrow. Shop toyota.com for deals and details. Toyota, let's go places. Cash flow crunch? OnDeck's small business line of credit gives your business immediate access to funds, up to $200,000, right when you need it. Cover seasonal dips, manage payroll, restock inventory, or tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat. With flexible draws, transparent pricing, and control over repayment, get funded quickly and confidently.

• 44:55Speaker 05

  Apply today at ondeck.com. Funds could be available as soon as tomorrow. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 45:07Speaker 07

  Hey, I'm Niall Rogers. This fall, I'll be driving across the country, meeting some of today's coolest and most fascinating artists. We'll explore the stories before the moments that changed everything. Because every musician remembers the moment where it all began. Experience Before the Moment, a Lincoln original series on the iHeartRadio app, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 45:38Speaker 00

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.