In a new book, Italian psychologist Chiara Luzi reveals new details on “Mother Superior,” “Saint Antoine,” and the painter’s mental problems.
by Massimo Introvigne
The new book on Polish painter Tamara de Lempicka (1898–1980) by Italian psychologist Chiara Luzi is an attempt to reconstruct her career and her attitude to life and religion from the point of view of her psychological problems and pathologies.
Luzi had already contributed to Lempicka studies with an important article of 2015 co-signed by Roberto Boccalon. There, Luzi had finally revealed the identity of the mysterious “Mother Superior” mentioned in the tittle of Lempicka’s well-known painting of 1935. Luzi proved she was Mother Thérèse Delphine (Eugénie Rosalie Capdevielle, 1874–1954) of the Daughters of the Cross, who lived in nearby Parma when Tamara was trying to overcome her depression in the spa town of Salsomaggiore.
In the new book—“Tamara de Lempicka oltre l’apparenza” (Rome: Alpes Italia, 2024)—Luzi confirms the identification. She dismisses the objection that Lempicka mentioned a convent “near” Parma while the one of Mother Thérèse Delphine was “in” Parma. In fact, Luzi pointed out that Lempicka also reported that when she asked where the convent she was looking for was, she got the answer “But here, Parma it’s quite close to Salsomaggiore.”
Why does this matter? Luzi reconstructs Lempicka’s life as a continuous struggle with psychological instability, difficult relationships with all her relatives, including husbands and daughter, and mental illnesses.
Tamara was born in Warsaw to a wealthy Catholic Polish family. After enjoying a luxurious childhood, she married lawyer Tadeusz Lempicki (1888–1951) in 1916. They moved to St. Petersburg and escaped to Paris after the Russian Revolution. In 1920, Tamara gave birth to their daughter Kizette (1920–2001), who later became a model for some of her most famous paintings.
Tamara was pathologically unfaithful to Tadeusz. She had multiple relationships with both men and women, including prostitutes, many of whom were captured in her elegant portraits. Luzi sees here a precocious sign of her mental illness. In 1928, Tadeusz decided that her ongoing infidelities were no longer acceptable and divorced her.
Tamara later married one of the prominent collectors of her paintings, Baron Raoul Kuffner (1886–1961), who also adopted Kizette and passed on the title of Baroness to her. Lempicka eventually convinced the Baron to move to the United States before World War II.
Although the married life was again difficult for both spouses, Luzi portrays the Baron as sincerely concerned about Tamara’s depression and mental problems, despite the financial setbacks he suffered later in life before dying in 1962 while returning to the U.S. by boat from a trip to Europe. His death was another blow to Tamara’s mental stability.
It is within the context of her depression that Luzi places the two main religious paintings of Lempicka, “Mother Superior” and “Saint Antoine.”
In 1935, before her first trip to America, Tamara experienced a serious bout of depression and visited Salsomaggiore’s spa in Italy for treatment. Unexpectedly, she reconnected with her childhood Catholic faith and looked for a convent in Parma. The Mother Superior, Thérèse Delphine, received her with a look that conveyed, as Lempicka reported. “all the suffering in the world.” Tamara will paint her upon her arrival in New York.
Tamara and her husband, Baron Kuffner, regarded “Mother Superior” as the artist’s finest work. The painter always refused to sell it, opting later in life to donate it to the Museum of Fine Arts in Nantes, the first to acquire her paintings. Critics disagree, and some see the work as both rhetorical and unrepresentative of Lempicka’s best production. Luzi, however, emphasizes its importance for Tamara’s psychological history. And different audiences have reacted differently to “Mother Superior” (I, for one, always found it moving).
“Saint Antoine” is also connected to Tamara’s depression. Luzi finally answers the question that has puzzled several critics, who was the man portrayed as Saint Anthony in a painting probably started immediately before and finished immediately after “Mother Superior.” Luzi persuasively argues the man was Doctor Willy Bircher-Benner (1898–1970), part of a family of therapists who ran the prestigious Bircher-Benner sanatorium in Zurich. Baron Kuffner sent Tamara repeatedly there hoping her depression could be cured.
Depicting Willy Bircher-Benner as Saint Anthony was not coincidental. In a typical phenomenon of transference, she saw the doctor as a sort of saint, although paradoxically he ended up succumbing himself to schizophrenia. At the Zurich clinic, a uterine cancer was also identified as one of the source of Tamara’s problems.
They were not solved in the United States either, nor in Cuernavaca, Mexico, where she moved in 1978 and became involved with the young sculptor Victor Manuel Contreras (1941–2023). There, Tamara passed away on March 18, 1980, and left detailed instructions for a Catholic funeral, cremation, and the scattering of her ashes over the Popocatepetl volcano. Contreras was responsible for ensuring these arrangements were carried out.
It was, as Luzi notes, Tamara’s last artistic performance. I would add that it was not incompatible with Catholicism, as the Catholic Church had permitted cremation since 1963. To the very end of her life, religion was not less important than transgression in Lempicka’s life. Yet, Luzi insists it was a life we cannot understand without considering her mental health problems.
