Portrait Of Dr. Boucard
In 1929, Lempicka's most avid collectors (besides her future husband Baron Raoul Kuffner) Dr. Pierre Boucard commissioned a portrait of himself; the artist also painted several portraits of Boucard's wife and his daughter. A distinguished-looking, middle-aged man, the confident Boucard is framed by a background of white geometric shapes comprised of sharp angles. The darkness behind them creates a kind of mysterious contrast. In comparison to the somewhat flattened forms that make up the figure and the background, the microscope is fully realized formally. It anchors Boucard to the background; it is as though he holds onto it for balance.
In the picture, Boucard wears a smartly tailored white coat - a lab coat transformed into a chic outer garment that doesn't even hint at his vocation as a physician and researcher. Rather, he could be a military officer or, more intriguing still, a spy. Indeed, he stands in the shadows with his face turned toward the light. The pose seems to be defensive or protective of the objects he possesses: a test tube half-filled with fluid. Indeed, although Dr. Boucard was tangentially involved in cloak-and-dagger activities during the Second World War - his racing yacht was used by the French Resistance to transport munitions and was found by the Nazis and scuttled (then later purchased by Greek tycoon, Aristotle Onassis), Boucard's claim to fame as a famous French bacteriologist - hence the test tube and the microscope - was his 1907 isolation of Lactobacillus acidophilus, which he developed into an antidiarrheal drug called Lacetol. The discovery and subsequent development of the drug made Bourcard quite wealthy; thus, he had the finances to commission multiple portraits from Lempicka. The portrait is an idealized image of the doctor, whose work was far from glamorous.
