de Young Opens 2024-25 Exhibition Season with Dazzling Deco Display

Benefactors of the de Young Museum got a first-look at what’s sure to be a highlight of the current exhibition season, with a special donor party to view a retrospective of renowned Art Deco artist Tamara Lempicka. On October 10, partygoers got to view more than 100 of de Lempicka’s colorful, stylized paintings and portraits, which are considered icons of that era.

Guests arrived dressed in cocktail attire befitting the decadence of the Jazz Age. While nibbling treats from McCall’s Catering & Events and sipping wine from Jackson Family Wines, they soaked up the atmosphere created by jazz musicians courtesy of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. Special guests, including Zac Posen, Dede Wilsey, Stanlee Gatti and Tamara de Lempicka’s great-granddaughter Marisa de Lempicka, were witness to the renowned artist’s first major U.S. museum retrospective. 

The works on display, which explore the artist’s distinctive style and unconventional life, range from her post-Cubist work in 1920s Paris, to her most famous nudes and portraits, to the melancholic still lifes and interiors of her final days in the United States and Mexico. Considered the defining portraitist of her time, de Lempicka’s work will be on display at the de Young through February 9, 2025.