Ira Perrot, France
Alain Blondel, Paris (acquired from the estate of the above)
Acquired from the above

Mexico City, Museo del Palacio de Bellas Artes, Tamara de Lempicka, 2009, no. 36, illustrated in the catalogue
Tokyo, Bunkamura Museum of Fine Arts & Hyogo, Hyogo Prefectural  Museum of Art, Tamara de Lempicka et son époque, 2010, no. 44, illustrated in the catalogue
Rome, Complesso del Vittoriano, Tamara de Lempicka, The Queen of Modern, 2011, no. 56, illustrated in color in the catalogue
Paris, Pinacotheque de Paris, Tamara de Lempicka, "La Reine de l'art deco," 2013, no. 92, illustrated in color in the catalogue

This work is double sided. The surface is clean and the colors are bright and fresh. Under UV light retouches are visible to the proper left side of the figure's nose and eye socket. In addition there are a few isolated spots of retouching in the figure's neck, blouse, scarf and around the extreme perimeter of the work as well as one spot in the figure's forehead. There is no retouching apparent on the reverse side of the painting. This work is in overall good condition.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Painted in 1939, the year Lempicka and her husband moved to New York to escape the increasingly tumultuous political climate in Europe, this composition employs the artist’s distinctive style, characterized by razor-sharp draughtsmanship, theatrical lighting and sensual modeling. Although loosely tied to the geometric aesthetic of Cubism and the proportionality of Neo-Classicism, Lempicka’s painting was unlike that of any artist of her day. 

Lempicka’s influences were as widespread as her diverse background: born in Poland, she lived in St. Petersburg before fleeing to Paris during the Russian Revolution, and eventually settling in the United States. Lempicka was receptive to the influence of her colleagues in Weimar Germany, and she readily incorporated the hyper-realism of Neue Sachlichkeit into her own work. However, it was her love of the precision and classicism of the Italian Renaissance that had the most profound impact on her compositions. Lempicka recalled, "I discovered Italy when I was a youngster and my grandmother took me away from the cold climate of Poland, where I was born and lived, to take me to the sunny cities of Florence, Rome, Naples, Venice and Milan. It was under her attentive guidance that my eyes took in the treasures of the Italian old masters, from the Quattrocento, the Renaissance" (quoted in Alain Blondel, Tamara de Lempicka 1920-1960, Tokyo, 1980, p. 22).

Equally important to her as an artist were the aesthetic forces of her era, the most influential of which was the American film industry. Lempicka was enthralled with the mystique of Hollywood and enamored by the modern glamour it promoted. The young woman in Portrait d'une jeune fille rousse is equal parts Hollywood bombshell—with her seductive gaze and incandescent complexion—and traditional Renaissance sitter, demure beneath her 💮rippling pink scarf.

Lempicka’s portraits of women have come to personify the age of Art Deco; lesser known are her abstract works, which reveal yet another aspect of the artist’s oeuvre. The abstract composition on the reverse sees Lempicka employ her hard-edged style to a completely different end than in her figurative works. Diving into abstraction in the early 1950s, Lempicka favored the Purist Abstraction of the 1920s, with its smooth lines, to the painterly Abstract Expressionism popular among her New York contemporaries. Lempicka’s unique oeuvre blends opposing styles and influences—figuration and abstraction, Renaissance portraiture and Hollywood glamour—to an extraordinary effect; as Magdeleine Dayot wrote, the paintings are a “curious blend of extreme modernism and classical purity that attracts and surprises, and provokes, perhaps even before conquering completely, a sort of cerebral struggle where these very different tendencies fight with each other until the moment the gaze grasps the great harmony that reigns in these opposites” (quoted in Gioia Mori, Tamara de Lempicka: The Queen of Modern, Milan, 2011, p. 21).