American Art Deco

Art deco is a distinctive modernist style that took its name from the Exposition Internationale des Art Decoratifs et Industriels Modernes held in Parins in 1925. The popularity of art deco during the 1920s and 19302s influenced modernist designers in many fields: ceramics, textiles, interiors, glassware, furniture, as well as architecture.

In the roaring twenties both the glorification of technology and the frivolity of the flapper decade were celebrated in art deco design. Seen most notably in New York City's Chrysler and Empire State buildings, the jazzy art deco style known as skyscraper or zigzag abounded until 1931. Then, with the economic depression years of the 1930s, the thriftier and less extravagant streamline and classical moderne styles came to the forefront.

Many of art deco's greatest practitioners worked in several media to produce exuberant buildings with seductive art deco interiors. Frank Lloyd Wright, Ely Jacques Kahn, and Eliel Saarinen were just a few of the architects who produced bold and vital art deco designs. This volume exquisitely reproduced the rich heritage of art deco design, from Sidney Waugh's glassware for Steuben Glass and Grant Wood's paintings to Donald Deskey's interiors in Radio City Music Hall and William Van Alen's Chrysler Building.