--- title: Google Doodle Celebrates Art Deco Pioneer Tamara de Lempicka description: On what would have been her 120th birthday, Google paid tribute to Polish artist and Art Deco pioneer Tamara de Lempicka canonical: https://time.com/5278883/google-doodle-tamara-de-lempicka-artist/ author: Eli Meixler article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-05-16T08:24:37.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:43:54.221Z og:title: What to Know About Art Deco Artist Tamara de Lempicka og:description: De Lempicka never stopped challenging expectations as an artist og:url: https://time.com/5278883/google-doodle-tamara-de-lempicka-artist/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt45e470d2b088a324/69893083ab6d77a4746b2acc/tamara-de-lempickas-120th-birthday-4614326680813568-2x.jpg?branch=production&width=1920&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: tamara-de-lempickas-120th-birthday-4614326680813568-2x og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: What to Know About Art Deco Artist Tamara de Lempicka twitter:description: De Lempicka never stopped challenging expectations as an artist twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt45e470d2b088a324/69893083ab6d77a4746b2acc/tamara-de-lempickas-120th-birthday-4614326680813568-2x.jpg?branch=production&width=1920&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Google Doodle is Honoring Art Deco Icon Tamara de Lempicka. Here's What to Know About the Trailblazing Polish Artist ## Video: How Google Makes its Doodles [Watch (HLS stream): How Google Makes its Doodles](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/upF0qp1E.m3u8) (3:23)  _Published 2018-07-07. Our videographer went to the Googleplex in Mountain View, California to meet some of the designers and coders who create the special, clever variations on the Google.com logo known as_ by [Eli Meixler](https://time.com/author/eli/) ## Eli Meixler May 16, 2018 8:24 AM UTC  Google by [Eli Meixler](https://time.com/author/eli/) ## Eli Meixler May 16, 2018 8:24 AM UTC Tamara de Lempicka never stopped challenging expectations. A refugee of the Russian Revolution, she became an icon of the Jazz Age and a celebrated Art Deco painter. Today, on what would have been her 120th birthday, Google pays tribute to Lempicka with a Doodle in her signature style. Here’s what to know about the pioneering Polish artist. ## An early love of art Lempicka was born as Maria Górska in 1898 Warsaw, Poland, then part of the Russian Empire, to a wealthy family. She was sent to boarding school in Switzerland and toured Italy with her grandmother, where she was exposed to some the greatest works of Renaissance art. She moved to St. Petersburg in Russia and married, but the very next year, the Russian Revolution forced Lempicki and her husband to flee. They found refuge in Paris. > [](https://twitter.com/DesignMuseum/status/864519314992484352) ## A pioneering painter Lempicka became a fixture of Paris’ bohemian art scene. Her paintings, often portraits of her celebrity peers or stylized nudes, merged late cubist and neoclassical techniques to create a metal-like visual style that was distinctively her own. She also incorporated elements of the Roaring Twenties: one of her most famous compositions, [_Autoportrait_](https://www.wikiart.org/en/tamara-de-lempicka/portrait-in-the-green-bugatti-1925) (1929), portrays the artist in a sleek green sports car. “My [goal](http://www.artnet.com/artists/tamara-de-lempicka/) is never to copy,” Lempicka reportedly said. Instead, she sought to “create a new style, clear luminous colors and feel the elegance of the models.”  A visitor looks at Tamara de Lempicka's "Portrait de Majorie Ferry" at Sotheby's in New York on May 1, 2009. Lucas Jackson—Reuters: Lempicka continued painting long after she moved to the U.S. in 1939, this time fleeing World War II. When she died in Mexico on March 18, 1980, as per her request, her ashes were [scattered](https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/a-glossy-queen-of-the-shallow-gh22rmql75b) over a volcano. “Few artists [embodied](https://www.google.com/doodles/tamara-de-lempickas-120th-birthday) the exuberant roaring twenties more than Polish artist Tamara de Lempicka,” said Matthew Cruickshank, who drew Wednesday’s Doodle in a style emulating Lempicka’s own. “Her fast paced, opulent lifestyle manifests itself perfectly into the stylized Art-Deco subjects she celebrated in her paintings.” Google Doodle Celebrates Art Deco Pioneer Tamara de Lempicka ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5278883/google-doodle-tamara-de-lempicka-artist/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5278883/google-doodle-tamara-de-lempicka-artist/"},"headline":"Google Doodle is Honoring Art Deco Icon Tamara de Lempicka. 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