Lempicka

Tamara de Lempicka--the Polish bisexual Art Deco painter and refugee from Nazism; born Maria Górska before marrying the adventurer Tadeusz Łempicki; resident of Poland, Russia, Switzerland, France and the US--is one of those painters most people know the work of without necessarily knowing anything of the artist. Her distinctive, somewhat unsettling paintings crop everywhere, and are much used on the covers of books.

Here are six of the many books about her. The woman in the green Bugatti on the first cover is a self-portrait.



Given the era in which she flourished, her work is well suited to decadent (or allegedly decadent) books from the inter-war years...




..and she is much used on the covers to feminist books with a transgressive or sensual/sexual bent..



..as well as sinister stories with strong, morally ambiguous female characters*...



..books by, about and for selfish motherfucking fascists "objectivists"..



..and all sorts of other books.


She gets around.

*In Nabokov's wonderfully black and cruel Laughter in the Dark, the main character marries a young movie starlet. When he is blinded she secretly moves her lover into their house. Said lover then proceeds to creep silently around the house, tormenting the husband, who is never sure if the sounds he hears are real or delusions. Nasty, gripping stuff.

UPDATE: Boktoka pointed me in the direction of another Lempicka cover, this one from Sweden: