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Art Deco Style
by Bevis Hillier
Product Group: Book
Publisher: Phaidon Press (1997-08-28)
ISBN: 071482884X
EAN: 9780714828848
Dewy Decimal #: 709.04
Hardcover: 240 pages
Condition: Very Good
Comments: 1997, 239 pages, 10 x 12, Hardcover with dustjacket in protected mylar cover (removable). Book & Dustjacket are in Very Good Condition. Book is completely intact with inside pages in Very Good condition with no tears and with no notations (no pencil marks, no underlining, no highlighting, etc.)
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Editorial Reviews
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Product Description
The dominant style in architecture, jewellery and interior decoration of the 1920s and 1930s, Art Deco was an exuberant reaction to the austerity and functionalism of the war years. Characterized by geometric shapes, stylized natural forms and the use of luxurious materials and inspired by sources ranging from Ancient Egypt to the Ballets Russes, the style originally emanated from France and spread quickly to Britain, the USA and thence all over the globe during the 1930s. Interest in Art Deco was revived in the 1960s, partly as a result of the work of Bevis Hillier, "Mr Art Deco". In his introduction to this book, Hillier recalls his own adventures, triumphs and mistakes in writing the first book on the subject and co-organizing the colossal Minneapolis exhibition in 1971. Stephen Escritt's text brings us up to date with scholarship and changing attitudes towards Art Deco. By charting its various worldwide manifestations, he demonstrates that the style (although only retrospectively labelled a "movement") had a coherence that led to its international spread. The book illustrated with examples from all over the world, ranging from liners to letter boxes and from radios to lampposts.
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Customer Reviews
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Elegant Art Deco
Rating  (5)
Date: 2007-07-23
Art Deco was an applied arts movement between the two World Wars of the 1920s and 1930s, it was the natural successor to Art Nouveau and the predominant style of the "Jazz Age". It encompassed the decorative arts and industrial design, fashion, film and architecture. Art Deco was an exuberant and exotic "total style" that permeated every sphere of inter-war culture. Inspired by The Ballet Russes, Cubism, ancient Egyptian, Meso-American and Chinese art, African art and modern technology (like speeding cars, ships, trains or planes) it could be very serious and playful at the same time. The Deco movement was the last of the great cohesive styles to evolve in Europe, but despite this apparent coherence the style was paradoxically eclectic and multifaceted. Early Art Deco was geometric and rectilinear using stylized flowers and animals such as leaping deer and greyhounds or motifs like fountains. Later in its evolution Art Deco became much more simplified, using basic streamlined and abstract motifs that took the place of overt ornamentation.
Stylish posters were still a major form of communication in the Art Deco era, they were used to advertise products, movies and for holidays and travel. One of the mediums main exponents was A. M. Cassandra who used posters to great and powerful effect with colourful, simple and bold graphics. Beginning in France around 1910 Art Deco's development was halted by World War I, but after the war ended spread throughout the industrialized world like wildfire. In France the style was exclusive, lavish and luxurious with an emphasis on highly skilled fine craftsmanship. Artists like René Lalique, Jean Puiforcat, Demeter Chiparus, Edgar Brandt and Emile Ruhlmann worked in costly materials like glass, silver, bronze and ivory, wrought iron, exotic woods and even shargreen or lacquer. French Art Deco reached its high peak of influence around the mid twenties with the staging of the 1925 Paris Exposition Des Arts Decoratifs, a seminal event in its history. Sometime after the 1925 exposition the style slowly began to wane in popularity and influence with many artists, artisans and designers moving on to modernism proper. But the final death knell for this era of hedonistic opulence was sounded with the 1929 stock market crash, however Art Deco as a style was not yet exhausted. During "the great depression" Art Deco underwent a radical aesthetic transformation with an emphasis more and more on the so called "streamlining" of objects; with subtle decorative touches such as "speed lines" the look was futuristic, functional and sleek. As a result of deepening economic austerity artists could no longer afford to use expensive traditional materials but new ones took their place, especially in architecture and industrial design. Products such as Ivorine, Chrome, Bakelite, Terrazzo, Vitriolite and moulded glass were used with great panache and verve in cheap objects and architecture alike. Art Deco in the 1930s is quite distinct from the extravagant style of the previous decade and has since come to be termed "Art Moderne" by many art critics and aficionados.
The reception to Art Deco in England was lukewarm at best and they viewed this style with suspicion, but still there are some wonderful examples of Art Deco from this conservative nation. Artists and designers such as Clarice Cliff and Keith Murry worked in colourful ceramics and porcelain, Eric Gill was a sculptor who designed architectural ornament and Oliver Hill was a prolific architect. In Great Britain's colonies Art Deco arrived in the latter 1920s and there are some moderately scaled and fabulous examples of Deco architecture in India, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. In the United States Art Deco was incredibly vibrant with a brash "new world" approach, and there were some important decorative artists, industrial designers and architects. The list of artists would include the likes of Donald Desky, Joseph Urban and Paul Frankl and later designers like Walter Dorwin Teauge, Henry Dreyfuss, Kem Weber and Peter Muller Munk amongst others, many of them immigrants from Europe. There are some towering examples of Art Deco skyscraper architecture in America (most of them in New York) like the Chrysler building, the Empire State building or later still the McGraw-Hill building. With their stepped forms inspired by ziggurats and more pragmatically strict zoning laws that required a certain amount of natural light to reach the streets, they have an elegance, sophistication and dramatic beauty that modern skyscrapers are sorely lacking in. Art Deco was popular as a style across the American continent with fine examples of buildings in Chicago and other big cities, like Bullocks Wilshire or the streamlined Pan Pacific Auditorium in Los Angeles, now demolished. Art Deco was also popular in Central and South America with many handsome examples of Deco buildings and religious statues, like the monumental statue of Christ in Rio De Janeiro. With the onset of World War II Art Deco fell out of favour with critics and the general public alike, society was being mobilized for a protracted conflict and Art Deco came to be seen as a shallow, excessive and frivolous waste of resources. Only in 1968 with the publication of Bevis Hillier's landmark book: Art Deco was there a reappraisal of and a resurgence of interest in this much disparaged style. Since then the popularity of Art Deco has gone from strength to strength.
Bevis Hillier and Stephen Escritt have written an absorbing and informative volume that is a classic in its field of research, it is intelligently written and engaging and will give one a deeper appreciation of this well loved style. Art Deco Style is an art-historical survey of this all pervasive movement from its roots in Art Nouveau to its conclusion with the outbreak of hostilities in World War II. Nearly seventy years later Art Deco is more popular than ever with many fantastic books written on the subject, and today Deco "objets d'art" fetch high prices in antique stores and auction houses. More than ever modern artists, designers and architects are inspired by its exuberant glamour, as this book will show. Art Deco could be urbane, sleek and classy and sometimes spectacular, dazzling or even gaudy, but always visually beguiling. This is a wonderfully illuminating volume and is a great pleasure to hold and read; hopefully it will inspire you to become an Art Deco enthusiast.
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New and Improved Art Deco Resource Volume
Rating (5)
Date: 2006-05-27
4 out of 4 customers found this reveiw helpful
Bevis Hillier first enlightened the world about the Art Deco movement in his definitive volume of 1968: now he adds to the strength of that fine work by joining with co-author Stephen Escritt to create probably the most complete discussion of the fascinating and important movement that influenced all of the arts in the 1920s and 1930s.
Art Deco is a term applied to the reactionary period of reducing all decor to essentials in the wake of the devastation of World War I. The concept was to simplify all forms of design to geometric principals, doing away with unnecessary filigree and flotsam and maintaining a dignity of presentation. The movement influenced architecture in the rebuilding of Europe (moving into the USA rapidly as a pacesetter), book design, posters, stage decor, ballet, and even music. The manner in which each of these transformations played out (and there are many more than those listed) is the subject for this fine volume.
While the book may feel a bit wordy for the casual reader (see other picture book surveys of the movement without the scholarly approach), there are ample full color illustrations to explain the theses and the aspects of Art Deco influence. Both authors write with style and clarity, making this hefty volume well worth the investment of time to read. Recommended. Grady Harp, May 06
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Minimal pictures
Rating  (3)
Date: 2002-04-20
11 out of 14 customers found this reveiw helpful
From the perspective of someone who has served as a museum curator. Full of elegantly written recollections, anecdotes and stories about the well-known names, but not a catalog of pictures.
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Incredible!!
Rating (5)
Date: 1999-01-31
37 out of 45 customers found this reveiw helpful
I have about 60 books on Art Deco which I can now dispose of. This Book is the finest ever written on Deco. A real treasure.
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