Unmistakable and personal, the work of Tamara Lempicka condenses a whole aesthetic stream that stood out in the first third of the last century while she managed to define herself and to mark a style of her own that we all recognise today. The motifs and compositions that the artist chose for her pieces fit perfectly with the Art Deco. Her enveloping volumes, her rounded figures and a clear contrast of colours marked her trajectory, far from the floral resources and the more slender vertical development silhouettes that marked this movement.

Tamara Łempicka, “The young girls”, ca. 1930

Precisely, the triumph of Tamara, already in her early years, and the fact that she was a female artist making her way in a sector so far still dominated by men, contains a halo of mystery and glamour that continues to awaken our curiosity. The life of this painter born in Warsaw in 1898 represents the bohemian spirit that is usually attributed to the artists of the turn of the century, with a highly demanded production and a long waiting list to order a portrait.

Her life is the story of a trip without truce that began with her studies in a boarding school in Switzerland and with family vacations in Italy. The Bolshevik Revolution was a change in her life, when, already married, she became a refugee, passing through Copenhagen, London and Paris, where she settled in 1923. In this context of flight and change, Tamara did not abandon painting, in which had begun in adolescence, and let the influence of the artistic streams of the French capital penetrate in her work. That is why, on occasion, her paintings have been described as a "soft cubism", a style widespread among many artists of the time. In 1925 she opened her first major exhibition in Milan, and in 1927 she won her first prize with the work "Kizette on the balcony" at the International Exhibition of Bordeaux. In the following years, she made the leap to New York, where her career reached the top.

Tamara Łempicka, “The sleeping woman”, 1932

Lempicka's work is enigmatic and unique, like herself, when she openly recognised her bisexuality in a context of social prohibitions. Her style has penetrated deep, even beyond the time when the painter reached her greatest recognition in life and has influenced other later creators who admit admiring her. Today, her work visits Madrid at the Gaviria Palace, 86 years after Tamara herself passed through our country on one of her many trips to Europe.

In the year 2020 in the heart of Barcelona a wandering gallery was born, the same one that in February 2021 would debut at Art Madrid with an exhibition proposal focused on contemporary portraits; with this subject matter it would manage to create a powerful dialogue between artwork and audience and make the seal Inéditad remain in the history of the event that contained it.

Jean Carlos Puerto. Protección. Oil and copper leaf on wood. 60 x 48. 2021. Image courtesy of the gallery.

Since that first time and until today, the wandering gallery has managed to build projects on otherness, has repositioned in the spotlight the discourses on the LGTBIQ+ collective, has consolidated a group of artists who share its principles of resilience and empathy and the best thing is that it continues to bet from the professionalism and commitment to give voice to the difference.

Claudio Petit-Laurent.. El Joven de la Perla. Oil on wood. 30 x 30 cm. 2023. Image courtesy of the gallery.

Inéditad Gallery, thanks to its founder Luis López, its collaborators and the infinite possibilities manifested in the works of the artists it represents, is a gallery that has demonstrated its capacity and courage to stimulate the sensibility of the public through art and seduce a generation that moves between the glass window and the analogical story. Inéditad is a nomadic gallery that has gathered around it a community of artists and has moved the context with exhibition projects that think about LGTBIQ+ art without prejudices.

Pepa Salas Vilar. Las marcas del arcoiris. Oil on canvas. 40 x 50 cm. 2022. Image courtesy of the gallery.

Pride and Prejudice was inaugurated. An exhibition that brings together the works of sixteen artists: Abel Carrillo, Alex Domènech, Carlos Enfedaque, Silvia Flechoso, Jamalajama, Daniel Jaén, Claudio Petit-Laurent, Jean Carlos Puerto, Fernando Romero, Pablo Rodríguez, Pepa Salas Vilar, Jack Smith, Pablo Sola, Bran Sólo, Elia Tomás and Utürüo. Painting, illustration, photography and digital art are the manifestations that bring into dialogue around fifty neatly threaded pieces, in a discursive line that discusses such a latent phenomenon as discrimination. To achieve this, the artists invited to the exhibition question themselves whether: Does discrimination exist within the LGTBIQ+ collective?

Pride and Prejudice Official Poster. Image courtesy of the gallery.

With approaches on and from the body, the proposal invites to celebrate diversity, proposes to question and self-question the prejudices and attitudes of society against the collective. Pride and Prejudice is a space for dialogue about the constructs imposed on us by society. It is also an oasis in which to deconstruct with tolerance and respect the subjectivities that sometimes prevent us from approaching the production of the participating artists, simply because "the beautiful" does not fit in an androgynous body. The subjugation of stereotypes are pressed with determination to find the beauty of diversity in other palpable facets of reality.

Pablo Sola. All men are dogs. Photography. 2014. Image courtesy of the gallery.

Throughout these three years Inéditad has stimulated the vindictive projection towards bad practices, has questioned estates around the LGTBIQ+ body and the most admirable thing, is that these capacities have resurfaced around the dialogue and the visual narrative of the stories that are told from the visual: Artworks that are people, art that is, per se, humanity. Overcome impositions and accept what is different in order to continue fighting against homophobia, biphobia, lesbophobia or transphobia and defend the equal rights that all the acronyms of the collective deserve in our community.

That's Pride and Prejudice: One creature, the happiest in the world. And maybe other projects and other people have said it - or felt it - before, but none so fairly.

Silvia Flechoso. Hola, soy maricón. Oil on canvas. 73 x 54 cm. 2023. Image courtesy of the gallery.

From June 8th until June 22nd you can visit Pride and Prejudice. Carrer de Palau núm. 4. Canal Gallery space. Barcelona.