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art deco
Columbia Encyclopedia entry: art deco
Art decoärt dĕkō'; är dākō', ärt or art moderneär môdĕrn', ärt, term that designates a style of design that originated in French luxury goods shortly before World War I and became ubiquitously and internationally popular during the 1920s and 30s. Coined in the 1960s, the name derives from the 1925 Paris Exposition of Decorative Arts, where the style reached its apex. Art deco is characterized by long, thin forms, curving surfaces, and geometric patterning. The practitioners of the style attempted to describe the sleekness they thought expressive of the machine age. The style influenced all aspects of the era's art and architecture, as well as the decorative, graphic, and industrial arts. Works executed in the art deco style range from skyscrapers and ocean liners to toasters, furniture by designers such as France's Émile-Jacques Ruhlmann (1879–1933), and accessories such as the elegant glass works of René Lalique. Since the 1960s and 70s the style has undergone a resurgence of popularity. Napier, New Zealand, which was rebuilt after a 1931 earthquake, has the largest unmixed concentration of art deco architecture in the world. Noted U.S. monuments to the style include New York's Rockefeller Center and Chrysler Building, the South Beach section of Miami Beach, Fla., and Fair Park, in Dallas, Tex.

See B. Hillier, Art Deco (1968), Y. Brunhammer, Art Deco Style (1984); V. Arwas, Art Deco (1985); A. Duncan, ed., Encyclopedia of Art Deco (1988); P. Bayer, Art Deco Architecture (1999); T. and C. Benton and G. Wood, ed., Art Deco: 1910–1939 (2003); C. Breeze, American Art Deco (2003); B. Hillier and S. Escritt, Art Deco Style (2003); G. Wood, Essential Art Deco (2003).

Wikipedia search results for: Art Deco
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Art Deco was a popular international art design movement from 1925 until the 1940s, 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. At the time, this style was seen as elegant, glamorous, functional, and modern. The movement was a mixture of many different styles and movements of the early 20th century, including Neoclassical, Constructivism, Cubism, Modernism, Art Nouveau, and Futurism. Its popularity peaked in Europe during the Roaring Twenties and continued strongly in the United States through the 1930s. Although many design...more »
Columbia Encyclopedia search results: art deco
Results 1 - 10  of 12
  • Philadelphia Museum of Art

    Philadelphia Museum of Art, established in 1875, chartered in 1876. When the city of Philadelphia planned to erect a building to house the Centennial Exposition of 1876, provision was made to ...

  • Napier

    Napier, city (1993 est. pop. 51,800), E central North Island, New Zealand, on Hawke Bay, close to Hastings. It is a major center for wool, as well as meat, fruit, and dairy exports; tourism is...

  • Chrysler Building

    Chrysler Building, in midtown Manhattan, New York City, at Lexington Ave. between 42d and 43d St. The ultimate art deco-style skyscraper, it was commissioned by Walter P. Chrysler, designed by...

  • Lalique, René

    Lalique, René, 1860–1945, French jewelery designer and glassmaker whose works are landmarks of arts nouveau and deco, b. Ay; apprenticed to Parisian goldsmith Louis Aucoq at 16; studied École ...

  • Asmara

    Asmara, city (1996 est. pop. 400,000), capital of Eritrea, at an altitude of c.7,300 ft (2,225 m). The name also appears as Asmera. A commercial and industrial center, it is connected by rail ...

  • Rockefeller Center

    Rockefeller Center, complex of buildings in central Manhattan, New York City, between 48th and 51st streets and Fifth Ave. and the Ave. of the Americas (Sixth Ave.). The project was sponsored ...

  • diner

    Diner, restaurant resembling the railroad dining car. In the mid-19th cent., the first dining cars that appeared on trains were nothing more than an empty car with a fastened-down table. Georg...

  • Biedermeier

    Biedermeier, name applied, at first in a joking spirit, to a period of European culture and a style of furniture, decoration, and art originating in Germany early in the 19th cent. and especia...

  • Miami Beach

  • Dallas

    Dallas, city (1990 pop. 1,006,877), seat of Dallas co., N Tex., on the Trinity River near the junction of its three forks; inc. 1871. The second largest Texas city, after Houston, and the eigh...

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