Self-Portrait in the Green Bugatti

The artist herself, cool and aloof, grips the wheel of a sleek green Bugatti, a leather helmet framing her perfect made-up face and gloved hand, the very image of the chic, independent modern woman. Tamara de Lempicka painted this glamorous self-portrait, originally for a German fashion magazine cover, in her hard-edged, lacquered Art Deco style. Now widely reproduced, the Self-Portrait in the Green Bugatti became an emblem of the liberated woman of the Jazz Age - speed, elegance, and steely self-possession distilled into one streamlined, polished icon of interwar style and ambition.