Editing Tamara de Lempicka (section)

===Paris (1918–1939)===
In Paris, the Łempickis lived for a while from the sale of family jewels. Tadeusz proved unwilling or unable to find suitable work. Their daughter, Maria Krystyna "Kizette", was born around 1919,<ref name="rmf24" />{{sfnp|Blondel|Brugger|Gronberg|2004|p=131}} adding to their financial needs. Lempicka decided to become a painter at her sister's suggestion, and studied both at the [[Imperial Academy of Arts|Saint Petersburg Academy of Arts]] and [[Académie de la Grande Chaumière]] with [[Maurice Denis]] and then with [[André Lhote]], who was to have a greater influence on her style.{{sfnp|Bade|2006|p=27}}{{sfnp|Blondel|Brugger|Gronberg|2004|p=17}} <ref name=":0">{{Cite book|last=Ader|first=Laura|title=The Trouble with Women Artists: Reframing the History of Art|publisher=Fammarion|year=2019|isbn=978-2-08-020370-0|location=Paris|pages=73}}</ref> Her first paintings were still lifes and portraits of her daughter Kizette and her neighbor. She sold her first paintings through the Galerie Colette-Weil, which allowed her to exhibit at the ''Salon des indépendents'', the ''Salon d'automne'', and the ''Salon des moins de trente ans'', for promising young painters.{{sfnp|Néret|2016|page=93}} She exhibited at the ''Salon d'automne'' for the first time in 1922. During this period, she signed her paintings "Lempitzki"—the masculine form of her name.<ref>Mori (2011), p. 379.</ref>

Her breakthrough came in 1925, with the [[International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts]], which later gave its name to the style [[Art Deco]]. She exhibited her paintings in two of the major venues, the ''Salon des Tuileries'' and the ''Salon des femmes peintres''. Her paintings were spotted by American journalists from ''[[Harper's Bazaar]]'' and other fashion magazines, and her name became known.{{sfnp|Néret|2016|page=93}} In the same year, she had her first major exposition in Milan, Italy, organized for her by Count Emmanuele Castelbarco. For this show, Lempicka painted 28 new works in six months.{{sfnp | Lempicka-Foxhall | 1987 | p = 58}} During her Italian tour, she took a new lover, the Marquis Sommi Picenardi. She was also invited to meet the famous Italian poet and playwright [[Gabriele d'Annunzio]]. She visited him twice at his villa on [[Lake Garda]], seeking to paint his portrait; he, in turn, was set on seduction. After her unsuccessful attempts to secure the commission, she went away angry, while d'Annunzio also remained unsatisfied.{{sfnp|Noreen|2016|page=93}}
[[File:Mechainbynignt.jpg|alt=|thumb|359x359px|Façade of 7, rue Méchain, her Paris studio]]
In 1927, Lempicka won her first major award, the first prize at the Exposition Internationale des Beaux Arts in [[Bordeaux]], France, for her portrait of ''Kizette on the Balcony''. In 1929, another portrait of Kizette, at her First Communion, won a bronze medal at the international exposition in [[Poznań]], Poland.{{sfnp|Néret|2016|page=93}}

In 1928 she was divorced from Tadeusz Łempicki.{{sfnp|Néret|2016|page=93}} That same year, she met Raoul Kuffner, a baron of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire and an art collector. His title was not an ancient one; his family had been granted the title by the second-to-last Austro-Hungarian Emperor, [[Franz-Joseph I of Austria|Franz-Joseph I]], because Kuffner's family had been the supplier of beef and beer to the imperial court.{{sfnp|Néret|2016|page=75}} He owned properties of considerable size in eastern Europe. He commissioned her to paint his mistress, the Spanish dancer Nana de Herrera; after its completion, Lempicka and the baron began their relationship.{{sfnp|Henderson|2005|pp= 106–109}} She bought an apartment on [[rue Méchain]] in Paris and had it decorated by the modernist architect [[Robert Mallet-Stevens]] and her own sister [[Adrienne Górska|Adrienne de Montaut]].
The furniture was by [[René Herbst]].
The austere, functional interiors appeared in decoration magazines.<ref name="Mobilier">''Architectures modernes; L'atelier de Mme de Lempicka'', [[Georges Rémon]], January 1931, ''[[Mobilier et Décoration]]''.</ref>

In 1929, Lempicka painted one of her best-known works, ''[[Autoportrait (Tamara in a Green Bugatti)]]'', for the cover of the German fashion magazine ''Die Dame''. This showed her at the wheel of a [[Bugatti]] racing car wearing a leather helmet and gloves and wrapped in a gray scarf, a portrait of cold beauty, independence, wealth, and inaccessibility.{{sfnp | Lempicka-Foxhall | 1987 | p = 77}} In fact, she did not own a Bugatti automobile; her own car was a small yellow Renault,{{sfnp|Néret|2016|page=7}} which was stolen one night when she and her friends were celebrating at La Rotonde in [[Montparnasse]].

She traveled to the United States for the first time in 1929 to paint a portrait of Joan Jeffery, the fiancée of the American oilman Rufus T. Bush, and to arrange a show of her work at the [[Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh|Carnegie Institute]] in Pittsburgh. The exposition was a success, but the money she earned was lost when the bank she used collapsed following the [[stock market crash of 1929]]. The portrait of Jeffery was completed but put into storage following the couple's divorce in 1932. It was sold by [[Christie's]] in 2004 following the death of Joan (now Vanderpool).<ref name="Vogel2004" />

Lempicka's career reached a peak during the 1930s. She painted portraits of King [[Alfonso XIII of Spain]] and Queen [[Elisabeth of Romania|Elizabeth of Greece]] and museums began to collect her works. In 1933, she traveled to Chicago, where her pictures were shown alongside those of [[Georgia O'Keeffe]], [[Santiago Martínez Delgado]], and [[Willem de Kooning]]. Despite the [[Great Depression]], she continued to receive commissions and showed her work at several Paris galleries.{{sfnp|Néret|2016|page=93}}

The wife of Baron Kuffner died in 1933.{{sfnp|Bade|2006|p=99}} De Lempicka married him on 3 February 1934 in Zurich.<ref name="adler">''Adler'', 4/2001, 31{{full citation needed|date=May 2018}}</ref> She became alarmed by the rise of the Nazis and persuaded her husband to sell most of his properties in Hungary and to move his fortune and his belongings to [[Switzerland]].{{sfnp|Néret|2016|page=93}}