The smoothly metallic portraits, nudes and still-lifes of Tamara de Lempicka encapsulate the spirit of Art Deco and The Jazz Age and reflect the elegant and hedonistic life-style of the wealthy, glamorous and privileged elite in Paris between the wars.Combining a formidable classical technique with elements borrowed from Cubism, de Lempicka's art represented the ultimate in fashionable modernity, while looking back for inspiration to master portraitists such as Ingres and Bronzino. This book celebrates the sleek and streamlined beauty of her best work in the 1920s and 1930s, and traces the extraordinary life story of this talented and glamorous woman. From her early years in turn-of-the-century Poland and Tsarist Russia, the text explores her glory years in Paris through to her long years of decline and neglect in America, and her triumphant re-discovery in the 1970s when her portraits gained iconic status and world-wide popularity.