Art Deco

Art Deco is a popular design style of the 1920s and ’30s characterized especially by sleek geometric or stylized forms and by the use of man-made materials.

Characteristics of the Art Deco style originated in France in the mid-to-late 1910s, came to maturation during the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes held in Paris in 1925, and developed into a major style in western Europe and the United States during the 1930s.

The characteristic features of Art Deco reflect admiration for the modernity of the machine and for the inherent design qualities of machine-made objects—e.g., relative simplicity, planarity, symmetry, and unvaried repetition of elements. Art Deco objects often showcase simple, clean shapes, usually with a “streamlined” look; ornament that is geometric or stylized from representational forms such as florals, animals, and sunrays; and use of man-made substances, including plastics, vita-glass, and reinforced concrete, often combined with such natural materials as jade, silver, ivory, and chrome.

Among the formative influences on Art Deco were Art Nouveau, the Bauhaus, Cubism, and Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. Practitioners of Art Deco also found inspiration in American Indian, Egyptian, and early Classical sources as well as from nature.

Like Art Deco, Art Nouveau is an ornamental style applied to such media as architecture, interior design, jewelry, and illustration. Both styles were popular in Europe and the United States, but Art Nouveau flourished earlier, between 1890 and 1910; Art Deco reached its height in the late 1920s and early ’30s. Art Nouveau emphasized nature, and objects were characterized especially by asymmetrical sinuous lines, often taking the form of flower stalks and buds, vine tendrils, insect wings, and other delicate natural objects. Art Deco, on the other hand, celebrated the modern machine and promoted geometric lines and sleek forms.