Art Deco Timeline

In France, the distinction of arts décoratifs was first made in the 1858 Bulletin de la Société française de photographie, marking an early formal recognition of the decorative arts as a distinct category.

In 1868, Le Figaro used the term objets d'art décoratifs for objects for stage scenery created for the Théâtre de l'Opéra, an early printed use of the phrase that would later give rise to the name Art Deco.

In 1875, furniture designers, textile makers, jewellers, glass-workers, and other craftsmen were officially recognized as artists by the French government, reflecting the rising status of the decorative arts that made the emergence of Art Deco possible.

The architects of the Vienna Secession, formed in 1897, especially Josef Hoffmann, had a notable influence on Art Deco through their geometric approach to design.

In 1901, the Société des artistes décorateurs (SAD) was founded, and decorative artists were given the same rights of authorship as painters and sculptors, cementing their professional status.

In 1902, the first international exhibition devoted entirely to the decorative arts, the Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte Decorativa Moderna, was held in Turin.

Josef Hoffmann was a founder of the Wiener Werkstätte (1903–1932), an association of craftsmen and interior designers working in the new style, which became a model for later French decorative workshops.

In 1905 Eugène Grasset wrote and published Méthode de Composition Ornementale, Éléments Rectilignes, systematically exploring the decorative aspects of geometric elements and forms, in contrast with the undulating Art Nouveau style of Hector Guimard.

The art movement known as Cubism appeared in France between 1907 and 1912, influencing the development of Art Deco with its geometric forms and new ways of representing space.

In 1911, SAD proposed a major new international exposition of decorative arts for 1912. The exhibit was postponed until 1914, and then, because of the war, until 1925, when it gave its name to the whole family of styles known as 'Déco'.

In 1920 the École nationale supérieure des arts décoratifs (ENSAD) was established, providing formal training for decorative artists in France.

The event that marked the zenith of the style and gave it its name was the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts, held in Paris from April to October 1925. The name Art Deco came into use after this Exposition, short for Arts Décoratifs. There was no section set aside for painting, but Jean Dupas painted murals for the Bordeaux Pavilion and the Maison du Collectionneur exhibit featuring furniture by Ruhlmann.

Image source: International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts

By 1925, two competing schools coexisted within Art Deco: traditionalists like Ruhlmann, Dunand, Bourdelle and Poiret, who combined modern forms with traditional craftsmanship, and modernists, who founded their own organisation, The French Union of Modern Artists, in 1929.

The Great Depression that began in the United States in 1929, and reached Europe shortly afterwards, greatly reduced the number of wealthy clients who could pay for the furnishings and art objects of the Art Deco style.

The actual term Art déco did not appear in print until 1966, in the title of the first modern exhibition on the subject, Les Années 25 : Art déco, Bauhaus, Stijl, Esprit nouveau, held by the Museum of Decorative Arts in Paris. The term was then used in a newspaper article by Hillary Gelson in The Times describing the different styles at the exhibit.

Art Deco gained currency as a broadly applied stylistic label in 1968 when historian Bevis Hillier published the first major academic book on it, Art Deco of the 20s and 30s. He noted the term was already used by art dealers, citing The Times (2 November 1966) and an essay named Les Arts Déco in Elle magazine (November 1967).

Image source: Bevis Hillier

In 1971, Bevis Hillier organized an exhibition at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, which he detailed in his book The World of Art Deco, further popularizing the style internationally.

Image source: Minneapolis Institute of Art

Beginning in 1900, department stores recruited decorative artists to work in their design studios, helping bring modern decorative styles to a broad public.

The French designer Frantz Jourdain, president of the Paris Salon d'Automne, invited designers from Munich to participate in the 1910 Salon, spurring French designers to present new French styles in the Salon of 1912.

In 1912 André Vera published an essay in the magazine L'Art Décoratif calling for a return to the craftsmanship and materials of earlier centuries and using a new repertoire of forms taken from nature, particularly baskets and garlands of fruit and flowers.

At its birth between 1910 and 1914, Art Deco was an explosion of colours with bright, often clashing hues. Many colourful works, including chairs and a table by Maurice Dufrêne and a bright Gobelin carpet by Paul Follot, were presented at the 1912 Salon des artistes décorateurs, where Louis Süe and André Mare also debuted under the name Atelier français.

In 1912–1913 designer Adrien Karbowsky made a floral chair with a parrot design for the hunting lodge of art collector Jacques Doucet, exemplifying the colorful early phase of Art Deco.

Modeled on the Wiener Werkstätte, the Compagnie des arts français was created in 1919, bringing together André Mare and Louis Süe, the first leading French Art Deco designers and decorators. The firm was sold in 1928, and both men left.

By 1920, Primavera, the workshop created by the Printemps department store after decorating the 1912 Salon d'Automne, employed more than 300 artists, whose styles ranged from updated Louis XIV, Louis XVI, and Louis Philippe furniture to more modern forms.

Gerard Sandoz was only 18 when he started to design jewelry in 1921; he designed many celebrated pieces based on the smooth and polished look of modern machinery.

The most prominent furniture designer at the 1925 Decorative Arts Exposition was Émile-Jacques Ruhlmann from Alsace, who had first exhibited at the 1913 Autumn Salon and had his own pavilion, the 'House of the Rich Collector', at the 1925 Exposition. His furniture was based upon 18th-century models, but simplified and reshaped.

At the 1925 Exposition of Decorative Arts, René Lalique had his own pavilion, designed a dining room with table setting and matching glass ceiling for the Sèvres Pavilion, and designed a glass fountain for the courtyard of the Cours des Métiers, a slender glass column which spouted water from the sides and was illuminated at night.

Diamonds themselves were cut in less traditional forms; the 1925 Exposition saw many diamonds cut in the form of tiny rods or matchsticks, reflecting the geometric aesthetic of Art Deco jewelry.

René Lalique provided the decorative glass panels, lights and illuminated glass ceilings for the ocean liner SS Île de France in 1927, and later for the SS Normandie in 1935 and some first-class sleeping cars of the French railroads.

From 1925 onwards, Art Deco was often inspired by a passion for new machines such as airships, automobiles and ocean liners. One of the first production vehicles in this streamlined style was the Chrysler Airflow of 1933.

The most famous example of the Streamline Moderne influence on ocean liners was the SS Normandie, which made its first transatlantic trip in 1935, celebrated in Cassandre's iconic Art Deco poster.

Image source: SS Normandie

The French sculptor Jean Dunand produced magnificent doors on the theme 'The Hunt', covered with gold leaf and paint on plaster (1935), exemplifying luxurious Art Deco craftsmanship.

In 1937, the Steuben glass company began the practice of commissioning famous artists to produce glassware, elevating glasswork to fine art.

In France, allegorical bas-reliefs representing dance and music by Antoine Bourdelle decorated the earliest Art Deco landmark in Paris, the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, in 1912.

In 1912, the artists of the Section d'Or exhibited works considerably more accessible to the general public than the analytical Cubism of Picasso and Braque, helping popularize Cubist aesthetics that fed into Art Deco.

The sculptor François Pompon was not fully recognised for his artistic accomplishments until the age of 67 at the Salon d'Automne of 1922 with the work Ours blanc, also known as The White Bear, now in the Musée d'Orsay in Paris.

One of the best known and certainly the largest public Art Deco sculpture is Christ the Redeemer by the French sculptor Paul Landowski, completed between 1922 and 1931, located on a mountain top overlooking Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Image source: Christ the Redeemer (statue)

Pierre Le Paguays was a prominent Art Deco studio sculptor whose work was shown at the 1925 Exposition, which featured major sculptural works placed around the site, pavilions decorated with sculptural friezes, and several pavilions devoted to smaller studio sculpture.

Cubist-like designs were created by Louis Barrilet in the stained-glass windows of the American bar at the Atrium Casino in Dax (1926), which also included names of fashionable cocktails.

In Britain, Deco public statuary was made by Eric Gill for the BBC Broadcasting House, while Ronald Atkinson decorated the lobby of the former Daily Express Building in London (1932).

Image source: Broadcasting House

Amiens Cathedral has a rare example of Art Deco stained glass windows in the Chapel of the Sacred Heart, made in 1932–34 by the Paris glass artist Jean Gaudin based on drawings by Jacques Le Breton.

Diego Rivera's mural Man at the Crossroads (1933) for 30 Rockefeller Plaza featured an unauthorized portrait of Lenin, causing controversy at one of Art Deco America's flagship buildings.

Image source: Man at the Crossroads

Paul Manship's most famous work was the statue of Prometheus at Rockefeller Center in New York City, a 20th-century adaptation of a classical subject and an icon of American Art Deco sculpture.

Image source: Prometheus (Manship)