The Powder and the Glory: Helena Rubenstein, cosmetics, art and wealth

Interesting online lecture from ARTscapades on the life, work and collecting of the Helena Rubinstein, the cosmetics magnate.

Lucrezia Walker, Independent Art Historian, took us from Rubenstein’s poor beginnings in Poland through to be a global business woman taking in her time in Australia where she developed her Valaze face cream, based on Lanolin, thought her time in London and Paris and on to New York in 1915.

She talked about her two husbands, a publisher, through whom she knew DH Lawrence and James Joyce, and a Georgian prince.

Most interesting she talked about Rubenstein’s art collection consisting of Leger’s, Picasso’s, Chagall’s as well as works by Frida Kahlo and over 360 African masks and sculptures.

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