Introduction

Art deco was a mayor decorative style of the 20s, the perfect expression of the
extravagance of Paris during that decade. Renown for its opulence and
exclusiveness, art deco embraced every area of the decorative arts including
furniture, jewelry, painting and graphics, bookbinding, glass and ceramics, and was
the last coherent decorative style to emerge from Europe during this century.
The 1925 exposition (la exposiciòn), from which the style took its name united the
work of the fines french artists in a dazzling display of luxury. Its creators were
primarily painters and sculptors who employed highly skilled craftsmen to execute
their designs in rare and exotic materials such as figured woods, precious stones
and metals, glass, and ivory, favoring strong and vibrant colors.
Art Deco offers a broad insight into the splendor of this most lavish of decorative
styles, as seen in the work of its leading French exponents. Their elegant creations
are brought together in this handsome and profusely illustrated volume, which
includes much material not previously pub-lished. The author's intimate knowledge
of many private collections around the world enables him to share a privileged
insight into the finest hand-craftsmanship of the time.
Readers familiar only with the "kitsch" Art Deco of the period will be astounded by
the superb quality of the objects discussed and illustrated in this book. There are
separate chapters on the 1925 Exposition, Furniture, Met-alwork, Silver, Dinanderie,
Enamel and Lacquer, Jewelry, Tabletterie, Chryselephantine Statuettes and Salon
Bronzes, Sculpture, Paintings, Posters, Graphics and Book Illustrations, Bookbinding,
Glass, and Ceramics. Also discussed are important Art Deco themes, including the
ani-malier tradition and the cult of the beautiful, sophisticated woman.
In addition there is a special section of biographies of more than 140 artists, plus a
bibliography and an index, making this an invaluable reference work for the
collector or anyone interested in Art Deco and the decorative arts.

AIMÉE
French toste in furniture was expressed by a return to
XVIII cand x IX centuries, adapting them to modernity by STyLISATION
Few of the creators were craftsmen, most were trained as painters, sculptors, and
soine avc → STYLE and STYLISATiON were the distinguishing marks for Arteleco,
which means that surface treatment was the essense of the style, not a radical
rethinking or reworking of the problems.
Painting, tapestry and graphics were based partly on a return to classroism and
partly on the absoration of the surface mannerisms of such movements as cubism,
fauvism, futurism and abstraction.
The trutts thought of themselves as artists, and
Creators
acted like that, that's why the movement ingeneral was so smooth, also they were
open minded.
Artists were creating based primarily on aesthetics, a chair, for instance, had to
respond to their artistre demands, if at the end it resulted comfortable, it was ok, if
it was uncomfortable, it didn't have much to do with its 100Ks.
SUMPT VOS Sa became another Key word " for the Art deco concept.

But still some artrsans emerged From the crafts, like Clement Mere Lne adapted
histechniques From a craft to the artistic demands of other disciplines).
They constantly worked within the boundaries of theircraft, but carried it beyond
craft by subsuming the craft element to the artistic demands of their creatruity.
Resulting in creations such as porous ceramic vases in which water would sport,
glass vases of such slender forms that a single rose would topple themover. Basicaly
euery before functional object, turned into an art object. (e.g. Etienne Cournault), he
said :
VI belive that anobject which is useless bas its own radrance, a high desinterested
value. I believe in the useless, in'the strange, in the mistery".
Paralel: - The Prazke Umelecke Dilny (Prague Art Workshop) for (zech artists)
In 1913, in England, Roger Fry founded the Omega workshops, that intend the her
cungrigos, by
decorative and design wor kg three times a week, but it was never financially
vrable, However, during the year it lasted, they produced various works (fabrics,
pottery, carpets, clothes, toys

Exposition des arts decoratifs et industries. (Paris, 1925)

Charles Plumet - Chief.
Louis Bonnier - Landscaping.
They designed everything to make the visitor feel dazded, there were gardens with
fountains, statues, plants and shrubs between every pavilion, laid by every architect
so that
Ewould be eachone
different for everyone.
There even was a complete toy village to Keep Kids entretained.
ALEIDA
French Parisian creation French style
French designer labeled their work “style modern”.
Pairs exhibition of 1900 marked demise of art nouveau as fashionable design
Art deco scarcely reproduces the sinuous lines of art nouveau, straight lines and
geometrical forms take the place of indulgent meandering curves.
Art deco`s boldness, dynamism and compact forms are a complete anthitesis to art
nouveau.
Developed in response to general pressure to adapt to the modern world.

Furniture
A will to simplify and be modern is the guiding principle but it is tempered with both
a desire to maintain comfort or just keep it chic, depending on the designer. There is
a sense of luxury and the refusal to give way to anonymity and mass production.
Focus shifted to the elegant forms of the furniture and decoration became confined
mainly to the flat surfaces, enhancing the lines and planes of a piece (clean angular
lines and bold geometric forms) --------- exotic and rare materials
Rich veneers became fashionable, often applied a cheaper more robust wood.
Warm woods were preferred, or woods with distinctive grain patterns: amboyma,
walnut, palm wood, zebra – wood, Brazilian jacaranda and dark stripped macassar
ebony.
Woods used were brought from Southeast Asia or Africa.
Ivory
Despite emphasis placed on high quality cabinetry and craftmanship, designers
tended to not be craftsmen.

NOMBRES
SUE ET MARE

After 1925; theories of modernist were becoming familiar art deco began to adapt
to the new design currents.
The new interior were created partly to the change in building styles; apartments
were smaller, lighter and more practical and required furnishing that were compact
and functional.
Many of the changes that came about in the decorative arts were due to the
influence of the Bauhaus, which emphasized the use of new materials, the
improvement of cheap manufacture and the creation of model appropriate for series
production.
The urge to pare down forms that were always a tendency in art deco, became quite
exaggerated under the influence of modernism. Yet art deco retained most of its
characteristics, its interest in elegance and refinement and its mannered quality.
Modernism, the new minimalism and the use of cheap, easy – to – manufacture
metal furniture began to make modern design a general taste. Firms were
established offering cheap furniture in metal or laminated wood; bright, simple and
well designed.

Sue et Mare threw themselves wholly into the spirit of the 1925 exhibition and in an
attempt of moving away form the traditional display of objects solely within their
classification, the exhibition organizers had decreed those old pavilions had to be
devised to a pre - agreed theme. Sue et Mare chose for their theme “a museum of
contemporary art”, so Sue designed two identical buildings, plain single story
structures whose only decoration was the lettering on the façade, one building was
the museum and the other one the Maison Fontaine.

Textiles
This was a discipline in which women were prominent.
Paul Poiret – The girls in his Atlier Martine produced bright, colorful, naïve designs
based of observations of nature, the best of which were transposed onto fabrics
wallpapers and carpets.
Poiret conceived of a new style of decorating in which simple geometrical furniture
was set against walls and floors that were in this vibrant designs, inspired by the
decors created by Leon Bakst and other for the ballets russes, he jumbled patterns,
colors and luxuriant satiny fabrics for a rich exotic flavor. Although the fashion for
this elaborate decorative chaos was short lived the effect of warm and lively textile
designs juxtaposed with relatively plane pieces of furniture.
Carpets
Designs were generally floral and fruity in the French tradition; Dufrene, Groult,
Follot, Ruhlmann and Süe et Mare all designed knotted carpets pattern with flowers.
There were some exceptions were they applied themes recurrent on paintings like
young girls and animals in soft pastels colors (Marie Laurecin).
A number of good carpet designs came out of England during this period, most of
them designed by women. Betty Joel used dasilva bruhl´s rugs in her interiors for a
time, then began to design her own, those were simple and understated, often in
creamy tones.
The marriage formed by Edward McKnight Kauffer and the brilliant designer Marion
Dorn were famous for their successful avant garde hand knotted carpets. Marion
made carpet design her specialization and developed a technique of cutting the pile
to create interesting textural patterns, while Kauffer´s rugs were decorated with
bold geometrical patterns and were often used by some interior designers.

Wallpaper and fabrics

The art deco style in wallpaper was lush all over covering of flowers and fruit within
a geometrical frame work, agreed or trellis, always emphasizing color combinations.
But the modernists, led by Le Corbusier, declared war on wallpaper. In the late 20s
the taste for bright color schemes became weaker and in its place came a fashion
for earthy neutral tones which lasted through the early years of the depression.
France always had an enduring reputation as great tapestry masters, but standards
had rather fallen in the 19th century, so not surprisingly, traditionalist tapestry
designers enjoyed a revival during this period. The most famous tapestry
manufacturers were Aubusson, La Manufacture Nationale de Tapis et Couverts de
Beauvais end la Manufacture Nationale de Govelis, they retained their own design
team. Painter Jean Lurçat worked for Aubusson in the 30s and succeeded in
singlehandedly reviving the art of tapestry by applying geometrical designs and
creating compositions that focused on the interplay of colors or textural contrast; in
the late 20s and 30s Marie Cutoli, who worked for Aubusson commissioned major
artists such as Matisse, Picasso and Léger to design tapestry cartoons, but at the
end of the day the results were too painterly and therefore inappropriate to the
medium and did not achieve great success.
Another important contribution to the English textile design was made by the Phyllis
Baron and Dorothy Larcher partnership, they specialized in the Indian method by
bleaching the patter into a color ground known as discharge printing.
Carpets and fabrics of the art deco period have not survived well to the present.
Textiles are by nature ephemeral, they fade and ware out, making it difficult to give
an exact assessment of the output of any period.

Metalwork
Metalwork of the art deco period was particularly dominated by Parisian design its
characterized for the magnificent wrought iron creations of Brandt to the simple
hammered metal pots of Lino Ssier.
The great versatility made ironwork suitable for adaption to modern design; it could
be made to appear massive and crude or delicate and refined, also iron could be
combined with other metals such as brass, copper, steel and aluminum, as long as
the designer was skillful and imaginative, there were endless design possibilities,
that’s why ironwork gained popularity for a wide variety of objects, from jewelry and
small objects to monumental architectural features.
The new atmosphere of innovation and design encouraged decorators and
ironworkers to rethink the role of metal in an interior, they made a single piece of
ironwork be the focus on a room, it added an element of precision and
monumentality. Console tables top by a slab of marble were popular, as were
screens, chandeliers, mirror frames and firedogs. Also ironwork acquired new works,
for example: the ugly radiators that were replaced by central heating installations
with ironwork screens, which neither disturbed the airflow nor were damaged by the
heat.
Lift cages are another example of how ironwork changed everything, they had
highly decorative entrance doors. Ironwork was also applied to the exterior of
building: balconies, grills and particular shopfronts. Decorative screens backed in
glass became very popular as shop doors and designs were often incorporating
lettering cut, presenting an unified and distinctive façade, as modern buildings
became more austere, ironwork was often the only element of decorative relieve.
Much of the credit for the highly successful revival of wrought iron goes to Edgar
Brandt, his technical mastery of the material and his exploitation of the various
metals he worked with, earned him this reputation. In the interest of achieving new
decorative effects, he varied color, tone and patina and in later years experimented
with combinations of metals, using new alloys such as studal and steel as well as
aluminum to create striking contrast. Brandt´s work was essentially in the high art
deco tradition, incorporating most of the characteristic motifs of the period in a
characteristically manner and refined style.
At the 1925 Exhibition the work of Edgar Brant was to be seen over and over again,
he executed various doors and gates for the Ruhlmann Pavilion and metal furniture
and furnishings for both the Ruhlmann Pavilion and the Salon d´un Ambassadeur
where he displayed L´oasis (a six fold screen made of copper, brass and iron).

Lighting
There was a steady increase through the 20s and 30s in the number people that
had electricity in their homes even if the light first came into use in the last years of
the19th century, by the art deco period it was no longer a recent invention, it
needed renovation to become cheaper and more versatile in its applications and far
easier to use. Due to all the previous reasons the art deco period witnessed a
profusion of decorative lighting devices, they were sometimes adorned
extravagantly in colorful, showy garb, sometimes more restrained in streamlined,
moderne dress. Lamps of all shapes and sizes (table and floor models, sconces and
chandeliers) appeared in the modern interior.
It was the French who created the widest range of decorative lighting devices. The
glass makers René Lalique, Daum Freres and Gabriel Argy – Rousseau, the
metalworker Edgar Brant, and numerous sculptures and furniture designers applied
their creative skills on the art of designing glorious night lights, floor lamps, ceiling
lights, and chandeliers.
Jean Perzel, a designer who had studied painting and glass making in Munich and
settled in Paris in 1910, specialized in lighting, not only creating wonderfully
geometric shades, sconces, ceiling lamps and such, but also sensitively relating this
object and the light they emitted to their environment. His lamps, often of brass
with frosted white or pink glass, had strong yet subtle angular forms.
Perhaps the most popular lamps were the small table models, produced by Daum
Freres and Schneider/Le verre français among others. They usually had mushroom
shaped shades topping round, cylindrical or oval vases and were made of either
white or colored glass with etged geometric motifs. While the Bauhaus designed
functional lighting devices (including Marianne Brandt Kandem bed side lamp of
1928).
In the USA many industrial designers directed their talent to lighting fixtures,
furniture and interior designers such as Donald Dekey, Kem Webber and Gilbert
Rode also produced table and floor lamps. On the whole, American lamps were ultra
modern, streamline and geometric, composd of contemporary materials, such as
bakelite, lucite, formica, steel, brushed chromium and aluminum, they tended to be
primarily lighting devices and decorative only secondarily. Nonetheless, their shapes
were undeniably handsome and distinctive, but simple and cubist, contributing one
more dimension to a functional item.

Ceramics
Geometry was a keyword in art deco ceramics from the ovals and orbs dominating
the shapes of French glazed stoneware to the triangles and circles decorating pots
in England, the USA, Germany, and even Russia. But added to a rigid geometric
form, there could be a stylized floral design, a frieze of deer, or great whorls of
bright color. Sometimes this geometric patterns were to be found on irregularly
shaped vessels (zig zagd vases and sugar bowls or cups with triangular ears). Art
deco ceramics could also take the form of ebullient, census, or humorous figures
(dancing couples in vivid customs, earthenware, female busts with corkscrew curls,
smiling pigs with purple spots).
The most serene and classical ceramics of the period were created in France, were
the names René Buthaud, Jean Mayodon, Jean Besnard and specially Emile Decoeur
and Emile Lenoble reigned supreme.
Decoeur was a potter who worked in faience (earthenware), stoneware and
porcelain, his vessels were generally decorated with geometric or floral designs
which later gave way to heavy, pale colored glazes.
Lenoble, on the other hand, almost always decorated his classical forms with floral
and abstract designs, as well as with colored craquelure glazes, like those found on
Sung Chinese and Korean pottery. The glazes on his stoneware were often earthy in
tone (greens, reds, browns, whites), but the decorations, whether subtle or strong,
distinguished the pieces from the works of his contemporaries.
Mass-produced tableware in both porcelain and earthenware, with art deco motifs,
also emerged from France. In 1842 David Haviland and his family built up a highly
successful manufacture at Limoges, a France city were porcelain was produced by
factories, by the 20’s, Suzanne Lalique, Rene Lalique's daughter, worked as a
designer for the Haviland family at Limoges, and ended up marrying the family, she
brought a unique elegance to Haviland porcelain, her designs were known for her
minimalism and refined aesthetic, she preferred using soft, muted colors and
delicate floral or geometric motifs, which set her work apart in the field of porcelain
design.
Jean Luce is another famous porcelain designer; he displayed white porcelain plates
with a silver and gold cloud and sunray motif at the 1925 Paris Exposition.
Established factories such as Sèvres produced Art Deco porcelain, including elegant
vases with stylized floral designs and monumental