Tamara de Lempicka, described as the first woman artist to be a glamour star, is known for her Art Deco-styled portraits of sexy, bedroom-eyed women in stylish dress and haunting poses. Her clear, strong style, sometimes called Soft Cubism, earned her a place at the top of the Art-Deco movement.

Her life is a dramatic story itself. Married twice to wealthy men, she moved from her native Poland to Russia, and then to Paris. In 1918, she studied painting at the Academe de la Grand Chaumiere, and was privately tutored by Maurice Denis. In 1925, she exhibited her works at the first Art Deco show in Paris.

She had been born into a wealthy and prominent family; her father was Boris Gurwik-Górski, a P...