self portrait

The artist, full title, and creation year of the selected portrait

Tamara De Lempicka; Self-Portrait (Tamara in a Green Bugatti); 1929

The core artistic movements blended together in De Lempicka's distinct style

Cubism's faceted shapes/spatial analysis combined with the sensuousness and luxury of Art Deco

The chronological window of the Art Deco movement and its primary design hallmarks

Around 1924 to 1930; focused on brilliant colors, angular shapes, expensive materials, and modern motifs

The specific wardrobe and accessories worn by De Lempicka in the self-portrait

Leather driving gloves, a driving helmet, a silk scarf, and bright red lipstick

The luxury fashion house that provided the silver silk scarf featured in the image

Hermès

The psychological mood conveyed by the artist's facial expression and body language

A look of hauteur, cool-headedness, power, and control

The mechanical and geometric elements that frame the artist's face and hand

The L-shape of the bright green hood/door frames her face; the windshield frames her elongated hand gripping the steering wheel

The reasons De Lempicka's exact birth details remain uncertain

She intentionally obscured her origins to cultivate an air of mystery

Her highly probable birth year, birth city, and family background

Around 1894; Moscow; born to a wealthy Polish family

The alternative family surnames and their complex religious transition

Surnames Gurska and Hurwitz; they were Catholics who had converted from Judaism

Her first husband, his profession, and his imprisonment during the Russian Revolution

Count Tadeusz de Lempicki; a Polish aristocrat and lawyer; imprisoned as a suspected tsarist spy

The destination city where De Lempicka and her infant daughter fled

Paris (where she fled with her daughter Kizette)

The influential Cubist painter under whom De Lempicka studied in Paris

André Lhote

The venue and year of her first major exhibition that secured wealthy patrons

The Bottega di Poesia gallery in Milan, Italy in 1925

The years of her divorce from Tadeusz and her marriage to her second husband

Divorced in 1828; married Baron Raoul Kuffner in 1933

The twin historical crises that caused her portrait commissions to dry up in the mid-1930s

The global economic crisis and the darkening political mood in Europe

The medical condition she suffered from before immigrating to the United States in 1939

Clinical depression

The Mexican city where De Lempicka retired in 1978 and eventually died

Cuernavaca, Mexico (died in 1980)

The country and approximate year where internal-combustion vehicles were first developed

Germany; around 1885

The 1927 statistical ratio of car ownership in France

One car for every forty-four people

The regional base and corporate specialty of the Bugatti automobile company

Based in Alsace (formerly in Germany); known for racing cars

Ettore Bugatti's famous, defensive quip regarding his vehicles' brakes

"I make cars to go, not to stop."

The exact Bugatti model designation that resembles the vehicle in the painting

A Type 43 Roadster (a fast, sleek consumer model)

The American painter and title of the 1907 artwork considered the earliest image of a flashy city car

John Sloan; Gray and Brass

The common gender associations attributed to cars by other interwar artists

Cars were generally presented as masculine

The artist, title, and year of the painting showcasing a working-class male mechanic

Fernand Léger; The Mechanic; 1920

The specific visual cues identifying the working-class status of Léger's mechanic

A sleeveless shirt, a cigarette, and a bicep tattoo suggesting he was a former sailor

The two Italian Futurist artists and their respective abstract automotive paintings

Giacomo Balla: Speeding Automobile (1912), Luigi Russolo: Dynamism of an Automobile

The hypermasculine values and inspirations championed by the Italian Futurists

Flying airplanes, riding in cars, fighting with modern weapons, and the glorification of speed and technology

The specific commercial origin and purpose behind the creation of the green Bugatti portrait

It was commissioned in 1927 by a German style magazine to be reproduced as a cover

The title, publication lifespan, and target audience of the German style magazine

Die Dame (The Lady); published 1912 to 1943; targeted the "modern career woman"

The prominent German Dada artist who also designed covers for Die Dame

Hannah Höch

The typical per-issue circulation size of Die Dame

Around 60,000 copies

The titles and years of the three other De Lempicka paintings used as Die Dame covers

The Orange Scarf (1927), High Summer (1928), and St. Moritz (1929)

The Swiss geographic setting and cultural milestone associated with the painting St. Moritz

Set in a Swiss Alps resort town; location of the 1928 Winter Olympic Games

The economy car Tamara De Lempicka actually drove in real life versus her cover fantasy

A small, yellow Renault

The automotive feature topics covered in the annual "car issue" of Die Dame

Photos of female celebrities with cars, reviews of new models, and instructions on how to change a tire

The exact length of the historic global road trip completed by socialite Clärenore Stinnes

A twenty-seven-month tour

The destination city where Clärenore Stinnes completed the final leg of her global voyage

Berlin

The name and occupation of Clärenore Stinnes' travel companion/future husband

Photojournalist Carl-Axel Söderström

The explicit physical shape formed by the green automotive panel framing the artist's face

An L-shape

The specific haircut peeking out from beneath De Lempicka's driving helmet

Bobbed blond hair

The exact adjectives used to describe De Lempicka's sidelong gaze

Nonchalant but vibrating with glamour and confidence

The specific timeline during which internal-combustion vehicles remained strict luxury items

The first fifteen to twenty years of their existence

The specific alternative cities and year range Tamara claimed for her birth to obscure her origins

Warsaw and St. Petersburg; anywhere from 1898 to 1905

The exact year Tamara married her first husband, Count Tadeusz de Lempicki

1916

The specific action being performed by the "active woman" on the cover of the St. Moritz (1929) issue

Preparing to ski down a slope

The three non-automotive general lifestyle topics regularly featured in the articles of Die Dame

Sports, celebrities, and cosmetics

The exact metaphorical phrase used to describe the automobile's socio-political role for interwar women

An "engine of women's liberation"

The specific calendar year printed in the historical photograph caption featuring Clärenore Stinnes

1926