Young Ladies 1927

Curator: Tamara de Lempicka's painting from 1927, called "Young Ladies", offers a glimpse into the artist's world of polished surfaces and latent desires. Done with oil paints, it shimmers, doesn't it? Editor: Absolutely! My immediate sense is one of…coolness. Reserved, maybe even a touch haughty. Like peering into a glamorous party through a window, knowing you're not quite invited. That golden-yellow scarf is arresting against their pale skin. Curator: The coolness is very Lempicka, isn't it? Her figures often project an aura of detachment, even while hinting at passion. Look at the way their eyes avoid direct contact, creating an atmosphere of implied intimacy and voyeurism. Editor: Yes, the gaze is pivotal. Consider this within the broader context of the roaring twenties—a period of experimentation, shifting gender dynamics, and a renegotiation of traditional power structures. To portray women looking at each other so intimately challenges the male gaze dominant in visual arts, wouldn’t you say? Curator: Precisely! It also complicates the male gaze by objectifying, but with agency. Lempicka gives these women an assertiveness. It is as if they're fully aware of their allure, almost weaponizing it. Editor: Weaponizing, perhaps in the sense that it gave women back some of the power taken from them? This could be read as a rejection of restrictive gender roles. Curator: Exactly, these are young women enjoying freedoms they never had before, pushing against the structures they lived in and making choices, artistic and life choices, that were not considered the standard or appropriate for women in the previous decades. Editor: The use of line, shadow, the contrast is remarkable here; it seems like every shadow accentuates the smooth art deco style. Curator: De Lempicka understood luxury on many levels, and created an intimate scene in the public sphere of art; her work oozes style and also this hint of what women were feeling. Editor: The painting seems to hint at new liberties, what women can represent on the canvas. That tension is delicious. A fabulous painting that has a way of both celebrating and critiquing its own moment. Curator: An eternal glimpse of a new world.