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would be received. She was close with [Houston Chronicle editors] Betty Ewing and Ann Holmes. I have a few clips from the newspaper. She loved the symphony and the theater. She loved buffet luncheons, at both the Warwick Hotel and the Racquet Club. Most of her jewelry was Euro- pean or from New York; she liked to design it herself. We have some in our collection which we have lent to museum exhibits and some was sold at Christie's Magnificent Jewels. She designed most of her evening clothes, long tunics with matching berets, cutting one paper pattern that fit perfectly, then reproducing it in a variety of drapey jersey fabrics sewn by her seamstress. On pals in Houston. Victoria: Tamara was friends with Jane Blaffer Owen, more than anyone else. She had a wonderful relationship with Jane, who invited us to her club, Houston Country Club — and sometimes to her home. Tamara gave her artwork to a number of people she was associated with — sometimes to friends, sometimes an attorney, a doctor, different people. She was a generous friend, and she gave Jane Owen one of her favorite ball gowns designed by Madame Grès. She was also quite good friends with Kitzia Poniatowska, Mrs. Conrad Moore, descendant of the last king of Poland, Stanislas de Poniatowski. It was in Houston that she was treated by the then-young Polish doctor Stanislaw Burzynski of the controversial cancer treatments — a hero in my book. He treated her cancer. She had a bit on her tongue from smoking, and it was excised without metastasis. She and my parents knew the di Portanovas, as well as Natasha Rawson, one of the founders of the Houston Ballet, and the founder of the Alley Theatre, Nina Vance. Tamara was known at the River Oaks Bank and around town as Baroness Kuffner — most never knew her artist name. Tamara anecdotes. Victoria: The first time I ever saw Tamara in Houston was in 1952. We were already living in the home on Reba Drive, and I heard, "Oh, your grandmother is going to be coming in from Paris, and she'll be arriving at four in the afternoon." So, a lot of excitement. The house was cleaned, even more than usual. She arrived in a yellow taxi. The door opens, and this perfume wafts out, and I smell the most divine fragrance I've ever smelled in my life. She's dressed in a hat with pearls and gloves. She looks at me with those big blue eyes, just piercing. I almost fell over. It was really an impact, that first meeting. I was maybe six years old. That has stayed with me my entire life. How she would walk, dress herself, how she would act. She walked like a dancer — that erect spine, shoulders back. On Kizette and Tamara's rela- tionship. Victoria: You could call it love/hate, but Kizette never hated Tamara. It was all love. But Tamara was more love/hate. Kizette looked a little bit like her father, and Tamara felt very abandoned by her first husband, Tadeusz de Lempicki. Although Tamara was behaving pretty naughtily, she never expected him to leave. But he did, and she was bitter about that. That's the only explanation I can give. Tamara and Kizette had their arguments, then 10 minutes later, they would be, "Oh, let's go and get some ice cream." Or, "Let's order lasagna or go out to lunch." Hug and kiss, and it's all over. It was a strange situation. Marisa: What I can say about Tamara is that she was very demanding — on herself and on the people around her. She was a perfectionist in every sense of the word. She was demanding with Kizette, too. She liked everything just so. She wasn't an easy woman, which is true for many talented artists and successful people. Nowadays you would say, "My way or the highway." I think it was a little like that with Tamara. But Kizette was a very sweet person, so patient, and adoring and loving. Tamara showed her love for Kizette by making her these amazing paintings that are in some of the most wonderful museums in the world. On Tamara in Mexico. Victoria: My parents, Kizette de Lempicka-Foxhall and Harold "Foxy" Foxhall, had rented beautiful homes in Acapulco and Cuernavaca every summer since the late 1950s. When Tamara visited us there, she fell in love with the climate, the beauty of the homes and gardens, and the lifestyle, with servants who were so sweet and gracious and knowledgeable about running a household. It was something she had not experienced in Europe or the U.S., and was more in line with the lifestyle of her childhood in Poland and Russia. Soon after, Tamara acquired a beautiful villa, Tres Bambus, on a private street where the Shah of Iran's mother and sister also had a villa. She developed close friendships with Europeans and Americans and prominent Mexicans like Octavio and Maria Paz, and the ex-queen of Italy, Maria José di Savoia, who was about her age. She spoke five or more languages fluently. She was fluent in Italian but was learning Spanish, so if she didn't know a word in Spanish, she'd fill in with the Italian word. Marisa: I was born in Houston, but when I was one, we moved to Buenos Aires. Tamara invited us to visit her at her villa, Tres Bambus in Cuernavaca, for the summer, where she had a chauffeur, cook, cleaning woman, assistant cleaning woman, gardener, and a woman who would come once a week to do laundry. And they all lived in the servant's quarters in the The artist's daughter, Baroness Kizette de Lempicka-Foxhall, 1987 74