Art Deco Complete: The Definitive Guide to the Decorative Arts of the 1920s and 1930s

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Many artists participated in the Art Deco movement, ranging from painters, sculptors, interior designers, furniture makers, and architects. Below, we will be taking a look at several notable creatives who created significant artworks within the Art Deco period and whose influence is still discussed today. Some of the most recognizable buildings in America today represent the Art Deco style and patterns in its architecture. After World War One, Art Deco buildings that made use of steel and reinforced concrete began to appear all over large cities in America and Europe. In America, these buildings were typically used for offices, movie theatres, railroad stations, and government buildings. Built in the Turtle Bay neighborhood on the East Side of Manhattan, the Chrysler Building is known for being one of the most striking skyscrapers in the city. This style of architecture proved to be incredibly popular and continued to be used well into the 1960s.

While his furniture pieces took inspiration from the Neoclassical style of the 18 th century, he worked to remove as much of the embellishment as possible while still using the luxurious materials preferred by Art Nouveau designers. Logo of the Société des artistes décorateurs (SAD), designed by Gustave Miklos, 1930; Pierre gencey, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons Postcard of the Eiffel Tower at night with the word “Citroën” in the illuminated letters, Exposition des Arts Décoratifs, 1925; Rijksmuseum, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons A postcard of the Chrysler Building, 1932; Unknown author Unknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons Within this traveling cohort, Hoover included important figures from the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the American Institute of Architecture, as well as several individuals from The New York Times. This trip to Europe went on to inspire an almost instantaneous expansion in artistic innovation and creation in the United States.The presence of a unique Art Deco style helped to return some trust and belief in social progress in America, as the artworks that were created were thought to be an expression of national pride. The American World Fairs in Chicago (1933) and New York City (1939) mainly featured Art Deco designs, as Hollywood adopted the style and made it alluring throughout the country. American Art Deco’s rapid growth created an expression of democracy through its designs, which were made accessible to ordinary citizens. Art Deco-style glassware, c. 1899-1930; National Library of Norway, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons As Ruhlmann’s furniture works appeared to fluctuate between the Art Nouveau and Art Deco style, this left a gap in the market for a more definitive Art Deco furniture designer to arrive. This occurred in the form of Jules Leela, who was merely a traditional designer prior to the development of the Art Deco period. Leela, after finding inspiration in the new and exciting Art Deco style, went on to design the furniture featured in the grand dining room of the Elysée Palace in Paris, which was his most iconic project. In the 1920s, after Lalique had refined his glass art creations, he rejected the style of Art Nouveau and expressed an interest in fluid and organic forms. This led to him embracing the techniques of the emerging Art Deco style, with his artworks becoming sleeker in the process. Lalique experimented with a variety of new materials, yet he preferred to work with glass.

The main characteristic of the Art Deco style was its pure admiration for the concept of modernity, as well as its respect for the advancement of machinery and technology. Elements that were able to emphasize simplicity, repetition, and symmetry were frequently used, which allowed Art Deco artworks to appear with a clean and streamlined aesthetic. However, one of Lalique’s most well-known glass sculptures was “Victoire”, which he created in 1928. In response to this, he sent a group to France to assess the artworks at the Exposition and to bring home any ideas that could be applied in a modern American artistic and architectural sense. On the other hand, the modernists stood out for their blatant rejection of the past. Artists within this Art Deco group sought to find and create an artistic style that was based on new developments in technologies, simplicity, an absence of decoration, and the use of cheaper materials and mass production. Based on this style, the Art Deco movement was less connected to the traditional supposedly superior forms of art that were made up of painting and sculpture.By 1925, two completely different and contending schools coexisted within the Art Deco movement. These schools were made up of the traditionalists and the modernists. The traditionalists, who had originally established the Society of Decorative Artists, included furniture designer Emile-Jacques Ruhlmann, interior designer Jean Dunant, sculptor Antoine Bordello, and designer Paul Poirot. The Art Deco label comes from Paris' 1925 Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes - a showcase event, organised by a loose collective of artists known as La Société des artistes décorateurs, for everything modern, stylish and high-end after the austerity of the post-World War I years.