Art Deco and Its Influence Today

Art Deco is a shortened phrase to mean “decorative art,” but the phrase “decorative art” is a very lackluster way to describe a very beautiful and influential era of art. The full inspiration of the name is from the “Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes.” The era reigned from the early 1920’s to the 1930’s, though the name “Art Deco” wasn’t coined until the sixties. The International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts, held in Paris (1925), was what is cited as the first inspiration of the geometric style. 

 The most common thing that Art Deco influenced today is interior design and decor. Its geometric shapes and bright colors pair well with the vintage “golden filter” associated with the era. The most common United States landmark built in the style of Art Deco is the Chrysler Building in New York City. The building started construction in September of 1928, and is 77 floors high. The biggest example of Art Deco in the architecture of this building is at the top of it. The arched triangle design at the spire and the arching  design that carries down to the top floors of the building. There is even detailing in how the windows are divided that is inspired by art deco. 

Another well recognized architectural monument inspired by the art deco movement is the Radio City Music Hall. The arches surrounding the stage are in the geometric Art Deco style. The Radio City Music Hall was built in 1932, also located in New York, by Edward Durell Stone. The coloring and the pattern of the sections within the arches look similar to the rays of a sun. Maybe it’s meant to emulate the idea that music can really “bring light” to things and cast its golden glow to all.

Another way art deco changed the world was in a sense of fashion. Art deco popularized the idea of blacks and whites being paired with brighter colors. This leads to much bigger bolder accent pieces like large jewelry and flashy clothing. One example of this is an enamel cuff dated to 1925. The creators, Georges Fouquet and André Léveillé, created this to be a delicate accent piece. This cuff is just under 17 centimeters in its inner circumference and is made of gold and black enamel. Its outside is embellished with a tear drop cut emerald, rectangular cut orange topaz, and glimmering white diamonds. The estimated value of this French made cuff is $237,500 (221,620 Euros). In this piece, it’s said that the Fouquet gathered inspiration by “surrounding himself with some of the best decorative artists of the time, such as Alphonse Mucha who helped design the boutique in Rue Royale, the poster artist Cassandre or the painter André Léveillé [who helped design the cuff]” (Truong).  

The first illustrated work I chose to represent Art Deco with is a tonic wine advertisement for Dubonnet by Cassandre. Cassandre was a French designer in the early twentieth century. In this instance of the poster, The man is shown being dressed in black and the outside of the bottle is black. However, where the wine has touched (meaning his hands, his lips, and the glass) has become bright and colorful. This demonstrates effective use of Saturated reds and yellows alongside dull grays and blacks. When looking at the imagery, you can also very clearly see what the shapes elude to, though they are very basic and geometric in idea. The text is also a very geometric and almost blocky structure. The red text below “Dubonnet” reads: tonic wine with cinchona. The original poster was 168 centimeters tall and 122 centimeters wide. 

The next piece is also by Cassandre. The rough translation of the title is “The Atlantic.” The original print was 39 inches tall and 24 inches wide. I feel this also well defines the Art Deco period because of the geometric imagery of the ship. Cassandre used a lower perspective for comparison. The advertisement of this forty thousand ton boat uses the bottom part of The Atlantic as a black background for the much smaller ship below while engulfing the whole page with its size. Another note of Art Deco is the geometric text, and the almost perfectly circular “Q”. Once again, the gold tint on the image reminds that gold and black are the two boldest colors in this era of decor. 

For my third piece, I chose a poster by Charles Yray. It advertises Pelican Cigarettes for Virginia Tobacco. The original poster is 21 inches by 30 inches. It displays a bright white pelican with a golden bill, smoking a white cigarette on a green background. There is a can of cigarettes with a gold and black checked pattern displaying the company's logo. The text below it says “Pelican Cigarettes” in a saturated red with a Navy blue outline. This has many brighter colors, as Art Deco works should, but also has illustrations with inspiration from art nouveau. The lettering is very geometric, with almost perfectly circular C’s and G’s in the word “cigarette”.

This poster by far is the best representation of Art Deco as an entire era of design. This poster is advertising the Chicago World’s Fair (from May 27th to November 1st) in 1933. Its size is 40 inches tall and 26 inches wide. The poster was intended to show all of the progress made from 1833 to 1933 in the world of science and technology. (Fun fact: the fair actually ran a bit long and REALLY ended in 1934.) The poster was illustrated by Weimer Pursell, an American designer, who created this poster to show how we as a people have grown in a century. At the bottom of the poster, the water, the reflections in the water, and the shapes within it are all made of rectangles. Then as you move up the poster he has added much more intricate detail like the shadows on the buildings, and multicolored shadows on the three tall spires. It uses very baseline geometric shapes to create larger images, and simple yet descriptive illustrations. The poster absolutely blows the Art Deco standard of “bright colors” clear out of the water. There are brightly saturated reds, blues, and greens all working together on this piece. And, of course, this couldn’t be from the thirties without heavy usage of gold coloring. The spires, the outlining on the building, the terraces in the garden, and even some of the people are represented by this heavenly gold color.  Once again, it has very geometric text; however, it isn't perfectly circular, but has a greek styling to it with incomplete hemispheres making C’s, S’s, and O’s. 

The final piece of art is an illustrated ad from L. Matthey. It advertises Favor Motors. The origin is assumed to be around the  1930’s, and it is 47 inches wide and 62.5 inches tall. Once again, the whole ad is showered in this heavenly golden tint. The white background makes it look even more friendly and heavenly as a whole. The geometric text reading “FAVOR” is in a light navy blue, except for the bright red O. The perfectly circular “O” is made to look like a wheel or a target. Below this is an illustration of a yellow man on a bicycle, a blue man on a motorbike, and a red man on a fully motorized bike. All three men are driving on an arrow that is pointed at the “o” target as mentioned earlier. Maybe this is used to show that Favor Motors hits their marks? 

All in all, Art Deco as a whole is a very inspirational movement. The artists and designers of its time employed geometric lettering, basic shapes, saturated colors, and a wild sense of creativity to display a stunning expression of livelihood and energy. 

Works Cited

“Cassandre, 1932 - Dubonnet.” Permild-Rosengreen.com, permild-rosengreen.com/shop/159-posters/5129-cassandre-1932---dubonnet/.

“L’atlantique, 1931 - Cassandre - WikiArt.org.” Www.wikiart.org, www.wikiart.org/en/cassandre/l-atlantique-1931.

Pursell, Weimer. “Chicago World’s Fair. A Century of Progress, 1833-1933.” Www.loc.gov, 1933, www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2004665785/.

Tise, Suzanne. “Art Deco.” Oxford Art Online, 2003. OxfordArtOnline, doi.org/10.1093/gao/9781884446054.article.T004334, https://doi.org/10.1093/gao/9781884446054.article.t004334. Accessed 10 Sept. 2023.

Truong, Alain. “Unique Art Deco Multi-Gem and Enamel Cuff, Georges Fouquet - Alain.R.Truong.” Www.alaintruong.com, 4 Nov. 2019, www.alaintruong.com/archives/2019/11/04/37764670.html. Accessed 10 Sept. 2023.