Dictionary:

art deco

  (ärt dĕk'ō)

A decorative and architectural style of the period 1925–1940, characterized by geometric designs, bold colors, and the use of plastic and glass.

[French Art Déco, from Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes, a 1925 exposition in Paris, France.]

Descriptive term applied to a style of decorative arts that was widely disseminated in Europe and the USA during the 1920s and 1930s. Derived from the style made popular by the Exposition Internationale des Arts D?coratifs et Industriels Modernes held in Paris in 1925, the term has been used only since the late 1960s, when there was a revival of interest in the decorative arts of the early 20th century. Since then the term 'Art Deco' has been applied to a wide variety of works produced during the inter-war years, and even to those of the German Bauhaus. But Art Deco was essentially of French origin, and the term should, therefore, be applied only to French works and those from countries directly influenced by France.

See the Abbreviations for further details.

For more information on Art Deco, visit Britannica.com.

The term ‘Art Deco’ has been used to describe design and architecture from the 1910s, 1920s, and 1930s that was characterized by bright colours, geometric shapes, and decorative motifs deriving from a wide range of visual sources from the early years of the 20th century. The term—also known as moderne or modernistic—was an abbreviation of the French words ‘art’ and ‘décoratif’, themselves derived from the Paris Exposition des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels of 1925. However, the stylistic label ‘Art Deco’ only entered common currency in the mid-1960s when the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris mounted an exhibition entitled Les Années ‘25’: Art Déco/Bauhaus/Stijl/L'Esprit Nouveau (1966). It was given a further boost by the publication of a book by Bevis Hillier, Art Deco of the 20s and 30s (1968). Typical Art Deco motifs included flat abstracted garlands of flowers, flowing fountains, running deer, chevrons, lightning flashes, and sunbursts. They could be applied to anything from furniture, firescreens, and fountain pens to teacups, textiles, and toasters. In the 25 years or so of its duration, the Deco style may be seen to have made the transition from the sophisticated and somewhat elitist world of cocktail parties in the 1920s to the mass-produced, glitzy, and accessible world of the suburban cocktail cabinet of the 1930s.

The visual origins of the style included Cubist painting (particularly the more two-dimensional forms of Synthetic Cubism), the vivid colours associated with Matisse and the Fauves, the abstracted botanical and zoological forms explored by Raoul Dufy and members of Paul Poiret's Atelier Martine. Léon Bakst's striking and often orientalizing stage and costume designs for Diaghilev's Ballets Russes were also powerful ingredients. A widespread interest in ethnography, ‘primitivism’, and the collecting of ‘primitive’ artefacts in the early years of the 20th century also informed many designers' use of exotic woods, snakeskin, ivory, and other materials drawn from the French colonies. However, an interest in a rather more rectilinear and structured use of form and ornamentation was at the root of other strands of Deco. This stemmed from the work of Charles Rennie Mackintosh and designers associated with the early phases of the Wiener Werkstätte, particularly Josef Hoffmann and Koloman Moser. A further boost to the rather geometric structure of many Deco designs was given by Egyptian motifs with the opening of Tutankhamun's Tomb in 1922, as well as the widespread use of stencil techniques which underpinned many cheaper wallpaper, logo, and trademark designs. The nationalistic heritage of 18th-century design and ornament was a further significant stylistic sourcebook for French artistes-décorateurs, particularly furniture makers, as the 1925 Paris Exposition had been conceived as an important international stage for the work of the country's best designers. Although the Exposition had originally been intended to bring together industry and artistic endeavour, most of the works on display celebrated luxury and expense, features that characterized much of the work of members of the Société des Artistes Décorateurs (SAD) who held pride of place. Largely geared to catering for the affluent tastes of an affluent urban cultural elite the Société's leading figures included Jacques-Émile Ruhlmann, Jean Dunand, René Lalique, Louis Süe, and André Mare.

The dissemination of French decorative art was aided by the launching of a number of French luxury liners such as the Paris (1921), the Île de France (1927), and the Normandie (1935). Like major international exhibitions these floating palaces were symbols of national prestige. Often subsidized by the French government they afforded significant opportunities for French artistes-décorateurs to bring their work to an international, often wealthy, transatlantic travelling public. Important too in transmitting many of its features was the increasingly powerful and popular medium of film, especially the output of Hollywood, which often drew on Art Deco as a basis for its most striking sets. Pivotal in this were the highly glamorous sets overseen by art directors such as Cedric Gibbons of MGM (including Our Dancing Daughters, 1928, Our Modern Maidens, 1929, and Our Blushing Brides, 1930) and Van Nest Polglase of RKO (including the ‘latest idea in interior architecture for the modern home’ of The Magnificent Flirt, 1928, Flying Down to Rio, 1933, and Top Hat, 1935). Magazines such as Vogue and Vanity Fair were further vehicles for the promotion of stylistic trends, reflected in the design of many other publications that took on a more contemporary feel, with sans serif typography and geometric decoration.

In the years following 1925, the Art Deco style was widely disseminated across Europe and the United States as well as many other countries including South Africa, India, China, Australia, and New Zealand. This proliferation was furthered by the experiences of visitors to the Paris Exposition as well as the considerable international publicity and comment that it generated. Although the USA did not participate in the 1925 Exposition Herbert Hoover, Secretary of Commerce, appointed a commission to report back on European developments in the decorative arts. The commission consisted of 108 officials, manufacturers, art guilds, designers, museums, journalists, and trade associations, including the Furniture Designers Association, the Society of Interior Decorators, and the Silk Association of America. Following this, a number of American museums and department stores mounted exhibitions of French decorative arts. These built on an interest in European decorative arts that had been growing through the influence of a number of European designer immigrants to the Unites States including Josef Urban, Paul Frankl, Raymond Loewy, and Kem Weber. Equally, quite a number of American designers had visited Europe in the 1920s, including Ruth Reeves, who had studied with Fernand Léger, Donald Deskey, Walter Dorwin Teague, and Russell Wright. Deco was also an important ingredient of American department store window displays, such as that by Norman Bel Geddes for Franklin Simon, New York, which also owed much to the poster designer A. M. Cassandre. The style was a characteristic of the interior design of many American skyscrapers, especially their foyers that often also used indirect lighting effects in ways that had been seen in interiors at Paris. Deco patterns were also often found on their exteriors, particularly at the lower levels when they could be appreciated from the street. New materials such as Bakelite, Vitrolite, and chromium plating (See chrome) were also important ingredients of the style, seen to stunning effect in the interiors and furniture of Radio City Music Hall in the Rockefeller Center, New York, coordinated by Donald Deskey in the early 1930s.

Art Deco was also seen in Britain, often in the form of geometric sunburst motifs found on tea services, garden gates and fences, stained glass windows in domestic hallways, and radio cabinet loudspeaker grilles. In addition to enjoying Deco in the luxury film sets on the cinema screen, the general public also experienced it in the design of leisure architecture including hotels, theatres, lidos, and cinemas. Typical of the latter were the interiors and exteriors of the Odeon cinemas, characterized by the decorative manipulation of abstract forms, finishes, and colours.

Art Deco also became something of a critical battleground with Modernist writers like Le Corbusier writing in his book L'Art décoratif d'aujourd'hui (1925) that ‘the more cultivated a people becomes, the more decoration disappears’. For Corbusier ‘the luxury object is well made, neat and clear, pure and healthy’, the opposite of the ephemeral sensuosity of Deco. Seemingly self-indulgent and closely associated with the idea of ‘jazz’ and the ‘jazz age’, writers such as Nikolaus Pevsner used the idea of ‘jazz’ styling as a term of disapproval. Nor were its qualities approved of in pro-Modernist circles in the USA including the Museum of Modern Art, New York, established in 1929. Most of its design exhibitions of the 1930s were devoted to the work of European Modernists, following in the aesthetic footsteps of the ‘Machine Art’ Exhibition of 1934, curated by Philip Johnson.

The revival of interest in Art Deco in the 1960s and 1970s coincided with an increasing dissatisfaction with the restrictive aesthetic of Modernism and the more fertile and pluralistic terrain of Postmodernism. The most thorough and wide-ranging study of the style to date has been the major publication of Art Deco 1910-1939 (2003) edited by Charlotte and Tim Benton and Ghislaine Wood, all of whom curated the groundbreaking accompanying exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum.

A decorative style stimulated by the Paris Exposition International des Arts Decoratifs et Industrielles Modernes of 1925, widely used in the architecture of the 1930s, including skyscraper designs such as the Chrysler Building in New York; characterized by sharp angular or zigzag surface forms and ornaments. Also referred to as Style Moderne.

The Art Deco spire of the Chrysler Building in New York, built 1928–1930

City Hall of Buffalo, New York, an Art Deco building

Art Deco was a popular design movement from 1920 until 1939, affecting the decorative arts such as architecture, interior design, and industrial design, as well as the visual arts such as fashion, painting, the graphic arts, and film. This movement was, in a sense, an amalgam of many different styles and movements of the early 20th century, including Constructivism, Cubism, Modernism, Bauhaus, Art Nouveau, and Futurism. Its popularity peaked during the Roaring Twenties. Although many design movements have political or philosophical roots or intentions, Art Deco was purely decorative. At the time, this style was seen as elegant, functional, and ultra modern.

History

After the Universal Exposition of 1900, various French artists formed a formal collective. This was known as La Société des artistes décorateurs. Founders included Hector Guimard, Eugène Grasset, Raoul Lachenal, Paul Follot, Maurice Dufrene, and Emile Decour. These artists heavily influenced the principles of Art Deco as a whole. This society's purpose was to demonstrate French decorative art's leading position and evolution internationally. Naturally, they organized the 1925 Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes (International Exposition of Modern Industrial and Decorative Art), which would feature French art and business interests. Russian artist Vadim Meller was awarded there a gold medal for his scenic design.

The initial movement was called Style Moderne. The term Art Deco was derived from the Exposition of 1925, though it wasn't until the late 1960s that this term was coined by art historian Bevis Hillier, and popularized by his 1968 book Art Deco of the 20s and 30s. In the summer of 1969, Hillier conceived organizing an exhibition called Art Deco at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, which took place from July to September 1971. After this, interest in Art Deco peaked with the publication of Hillier's 1971 book The World of Art Deco, a record of the exhibition.^[1]

Sources and attributes

It was widely considered to be an eclectic form of elegant and stylish modernism, being influenced by a variety of sources. Among them were the "primitive" arts of Africa, Egypt, and Aztec Mexico, as well as Machine Age or streamline technology such as modern aviation, electric lighting, the radio, the ocean liner and the skyscraper. These design influences were expressed in fractionated, crystalline, faceted forms of decorative Cubism and Futurism, in Fauvism's palette. Other popular themes in art deco were trapezoidal, zigzagged, geometric, and jumbled shapes, which can be seen in many early pieces.

Corresponding to these influences, Art Deco is characterized by use of materials such as aluminium, stainless steel, lacquer, inlaid wood, sharkskin (shagreen), and zebraskin. The bold use of stepped forms and sweeping curves (unlike the sinuous, natural curves of the Art Nouveau), chevron patterns, and the sunburst motif are typical of Art Deco. Some of these motifs were ubiquitous — for example, sunburst motifs were used in such varied contexts as ladies' shoes, radiator grilles, the auditorium of the Radio City Music Hall, and the spire of the Chrysler Building.

Art Deco was an opulent style, and its lavishness is attributed to reaction to the forced austerity imposed by World War I. Its rich, festive character fitted it for "modern" contexts, including the Golden Gate Bridge, interiors of cinema theaters (a prime example being the Paramount Theater in Oakland, California) and ocean liners such as the Île de France and Normandie. Art Deco was employed extensively throughout America's train stations in the 1930s^[2], designed to reflect the modernity and efficiency of the train. The first Art Deco train station in the United States was the Union Station in Omaha, Nebraska.^{[3] [4]} The unveiling of Streamline trains paralleled the construction of the Art Deco stations.

Nash Ambassador Slipstream sedan

A parallel movement called Streamline Moderne, or simply Streamline, followed close behind. Streamline was influenced by the modern aerodynamic designs emerging from advancing technologies in aviation, ballistics, and other fields requiring high velocity. The attractive shapes resulting from scientifically applied aerodynamic principles were enthusiastically adopted within Art Deco, applying streamlining techniques to other useful objects in everyday life, such as the automobile. Although the Chrysler Airflow design of 1933 was commercially unsuccessful, it provided the lead for more conservatively designed pseudo-streamlined vehicles. These "streamlined" forms began to be used even for mundane and static objects such as pencil sharpeners and refrigerators.

The Art Deco style celebrates the Machine Age through explicit use of man-made materials (particularly glass and stainless steel), symmetry, repetition, modified by Asian influences such as the use of silks and Middle Eastern designs. It was strongly adopted in the United States during the Great Depression for its practicality and simplicity, while still portraying a reminder of better times and the "American Dream".

Decorative arts

”Illustration for Vida Magazine by Santiago Martinez Delgado (1939)”

Among the decorative arts during this period, architecture and sculpture are easier to recognize than other forms of Art Deco, for they experienced the greatest popularity and with greater longevity than others, such as lacquering, glass work, and industrial design. Popular sculptors include Lee Lawrie, Rene Paul Chambellan, Paul Manship, C. Paul Jennewein, and Joseph Kiselewski.

Architects of this time include Albert Anis, Ernest Cormier, Banister Flight Fletcher, Bruce Goff, Charles Holden, Raymond Hood, Ely Jacques Kahn, Edwin Lutyens, William van Alen, Wirt C. Rowland, Giles Gilbert Scott, Joseph Sunlight, Ralph Walker, Thomas Wallis, and Owen Williams.

Other forms of decorative art were very focused on elegance, dynamic design, and bright colours, while expressing practical modernity. Many popular interior designers of this period were also furniture designers. Artists like Tamara de Lempicka, Eileen Gray, Jules Leleu, Santiago Martinez Delgado and Émile-Jacques Ruhlmann all fit into this category.

A select few industrial designers were extremely popular, such as Walter Dorwin Teague, Maurice Ascalon, and Donald Deskey. Other notable artists were Georg Jensen (silversmith), Jean Dunand (lacquer), Edgar Brandt (wrought iron), Harry Clarke (stained glass) and Cartier (clocks and jewelry).

Decline

Art Deco slowly lost patronage in the West after reaching mass production, when it began to be derided as gaudy and presenting a false image of luxury. Eventually, the style was cut short by the austerities of World War II. In colonial countries such as India and the Philippines, it became a gateway for Modernism and continued to be used well into the 1960s. Before destruction in World War II, Manila demonstrated many Art Deco buildings; a symbol of the American colonial past. Theatres and Office Buildings have been lost in the war and recently demolished and abandoned for new development. A resurgence of interest in Art Deco came with graphic design in the 1980s, where its association with film noir and 1930s glamour led to its use in ads for jewelry and fashion. South Beach in Miami Beach, Florida has the largest collection of Art Deco architecture remaining in North America as well as Tulsa, Oklahoma. Napier, New Zealand has an almost entirely Art Deco town centre, rebuilt after a devastating earthquake, and mostly left unchanged since then.

Appropriate to the rich diversity of sources, we find some of the finest surviving examples of Art Deco art and architecture in Cuba, especially in Havana. Just as the 50s US autos have been preserved and restored, so the Office of the Historian of Havana has been restoring these fine old buildings for the past 10 years. The Bacardi Building is the best known of these; however, the style is found throughout all the districts of the city of Havana and in all the cities of Cuba. The style is expressed in the architecture of residences, businesses, hotels, and many pieces of decorative art, furniture and utensils in these public buildings and in private homes.^[5]

Modern applications

Marlin Hotel - Art Deco architecture on Collins Ave. - Miami Beach

Although Art Deco fell out of vogue in the 1940s, it has had small rebirths over subsequent decades. Its designs frequently appear in modern architecture, entertainment, and media when a "classic retro" look is sought. In media, such examples are obvious in Batman: The Animated Series from the early 1990s in which the show's creators used Art Deco styling fused with a deliberate darkness to create an Art Deco variant style often referred to as Dark Deco. Films such as Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, Dick Tracy, and King Kong have various Art Deco elements as well. In Marilyn Manson's The Golden Age of Grotesque, he demonstrates an Art Deco style mixed with his Gothic trademark.

In Long Beach, California, much of the recent city development has been presented in an Art Deco-like, postmodern style. Similarly, Downtown Disney in Anaheim, California has an Art Deco-themed section. A section of the planned community of Ladera Ranch, California, has a shopping center themed to Art Deco.

Similarly in Santa Ana, California, new development has looked to replicate and complement the historical Art Deco structures already there.

Art Deco can also be seen in the graphic design of various video games, such as BioShock and the Fallout series, which use it to give their high tech settings a retro-futuristic feel. The film noir-type adventure game Grim Fandango largely takes place in a very pronounced Art Deco environment, and the strategy game Sim City 4 has similar influences as well.

Shanghai had a distinct Art Deco style. Today, some Shanghainese are attempting to save that architecture.

Gallery

The Supreme Court of Canada in Ottawa, which was built in 1946.	Interior drawing, Eaton's College Street department store, Toronto, Canada.	The disused Snowdon theatre in Montreal, Canada	Walter Dorwin Teague's "Beau Brownie" camera for Eastman Kodak.
Mural for the 1933 Chicago International Fair.	The grand staircase aboard the SS Paris.	Phul Cinema in Patiala, India.	Kansas City Power and Light Building, in Kansas City, Missouri.
The Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles, California, April 2007	Coit Tower in San Francisco, California	Union Terminal in Cincinnati, Ohio.	Delano, National hotel fronts on Collins Ave. - Miami Beach
Town in Coronel Pringles, Argentina by Francisco Salamone.

References

See also

• 1933 Chicago Wold's Fair Century of Progress
• 1939 New York World's Fair
• Aleksandra Ekster
• Vadim Meller
• Corrado Parducci
• International style
• List of Art Deco architecture
• Durban Art Deco
• List of Art Deco buildings in Melbourne
• List of Art Deco buildings in Tasmania
• Napier, New Zealand
• Streamline Moderne
• Wirt C. Rowland
• Francisco Salamone
• Oliver Percy Bernard

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Art Deco

• Durban Deco Directory: South Africa
• Article on Anzac Memorial with photos
• Art Deco Heritage of Tulsa, Oklahoma
• Art Deco architecture tour of Chicago landmarks
• large collection of photographic examples
• The Art Deco Trust of Napier, New Zealand
• The Art Deco Society of California
• Art Deco Resource
• The Art Deco industrial design of Maurice Ascalon's Pal-Bell
• Website with pictures and history of Art Deco Buildings in Sydney, Australia
• The Art Deco Society of Western Australia
• Art Deco objects in detail. Victoria and Albert Museum. Retrieved on 2007-06-07.

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