Kizette au châle polonais - Tamara de Lempicka

A striking Art Deco portrait of the artist's daughter, Kizette, wearing a traditional Polish shawl. This c. 1933 work features the sculptural forms and dramatic lighting characteristic of Tamara de Lempicka's style.

Tamara de Lempicka painted this portrait of her daughter, Kizette, around 1933. The work belongs to a series of portraits the artist created of her child throughout the 1920s and 1930s. This specific composition shows the young girl wearing a traditional Polish shawl, which references the family's heritage. The subject holds a book with dark covers; her gaze is directed upwards and away from the viewer. The painting demonstrates the artist's signature style, often described as soft cubism. The forms are sculptural and defined by sharp, clean edges. Lempicka used a smooth application of oil paint to create surfaces that appear almost metallic or ceramic. The lighting is dramatic, casting deep shadows that define the cylindrical shapes of the fingers and the rounded contours of the face. The colour palette is restrained. It relies on the contrast between the white fabric of the shawl and the dark background. Red floral patterns on the shawl provide the primary decorative element. These floral motifs are rendered with the same geometric precision as the figure. The treatment of the hair, shown as tight, golden curls, reflects the influence of Renaissance portraiture filtered through a modern, industrial aesthetic. Lempicka was a central figure in the Parisian art scene during the interwar period. Her work combined classical draughtsmanship with the modernism of the machine age. This portrait of Kizette is a representative example of how she applied these principles to intimate, domestic subjects.