Art Deco

Many international exhibitions helped promote Art Deco, but none was more important than the Paris Exhibition of 1925 'Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modèrnes'. The term originated with this exhibition and became associated with the style of decorative art that was predominant during the inter-war years. The exhibition brought together thousands of designs from all over Europe and beyond. With over 16 million visitors, it marked the high point of the first phase of Art Deco. The term applied mainly to graphic art and mass-produced domestic goods. A few artists worked in the style which was a blend of the Abstraction and fragmentation of Art Nouveau and Cubism combined with the ornamentation seen in Asian and Mayan architecture. One of the exponents of an Art Deco style of painting in Europe was Tamara de Lempicka (1898-1980) while in Britain the style has become associated with the pottery designs of Clarice Cliff. The pavilions of major manufacturers, department stores and designers, together with avenues of boutiques, enticed visitors to the fairground by day. By night, its monumental gates, bridges and fountains, as well as major landmarks in the surrounding city, were a blaze of light. The Eiffel Tower bore the Citroën logo. A triumph of nineteenth-century engineering, the tower was transformed into a giant advertisement for twentieth-century consumerism.