Lempicka bumped into her one day in the Bois de Boulogne and immediately asked her to be her model.
By 1929 she had painted one of her best known artworks, Autoportrait, also known as Tamara in a Green Bugatti.
Her sources of inspiration ranged dramatically: she adored Italian Renaissance painting; she was characterized by critics as a sort of modern-day Ingres, although the comparisons were more often not intended to flatter; she absorbed the avant garde art of the era - particularly post-cubist abstraction but of a "softened" style.