Art Deco

Art Deco. The most fashionable style of design and interior decoration in the 1920s and 1930s in Europe and the USA, characterized by sleek geometrical or stylized forms and bright, sometimes garish colours. The style takes its name from the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes, held in Paris in 1925. The emphasis of the exhibition was on individuality and fine craftsmanship (at the opposite extreme from the contemporary doctrines of the Bauhaus), and Art Deco was originally a luxury style, with costly materials such as ivory, jade, and lacquer much in evidence. However, when the exhibition ‘Machine Art’—another great showcase of the style—was held at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, in 1934, the emphasis was on the general style and impression of an interior rather than upon the individual craft object. Perhaps partly because of the effects of the Depression, materials that could be easily mass produced (such as plastics) were adapted to the style. Art Deco may have owed something to several of the major art movements of the early 20th century—the geometry of Cubism (it has been described as ‘Cubism tamed’), the bold colours of Fauvism, and the machine forms of Constructivism and Futurism. Similarly, although the term is not often applied to painting or sculpture, the Art Deco style is clearly reflected in the streamlined forms of certain artists of the period, for example the painter Tamara de Lempicka and the sculptor Paul Manship. There was a revival of interest in Art Deco during the 1960s (it was then that the name was coined) and its bold, bright forms have a kinship with Pop art.