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This compact and beautifully illustrated book concentrates on the
essential aspects of the Art Deco movement with a certain sophistication
and clarity - uncovering the main influences of an innovative style
that oozed glamour and beauty. The author Ghislaine Wood worked
on the Victoria and Albert Museum's brilliant Art Deco 1910-1939
and contributed scholarly essays to the large and comprehensive
catalogue that accompanied the show.
Art Deco was the style of an era of extremes; it spread throughout
the world in the 1920s and 1930s charting a time of fantastic wealth
and subsequent economic depression. As author Ghislaine Wood writes,
‘Spanning the boom of the roaring twenties and the bust of
the Depression-ridden thirties, (Art Deco) came to represent many
things to many people. It was the style of the flapper girl and
the factories of Fordism, the luxury ocean liner and the skyscraper,
the fantasy world of Hollywood and the real world of the Harlem
Renaissance’.1
Here was a global movement responsible for altering the skylines
of cities from Rio to Shanghai. While embracing tradition in many
ways, Art Deco also celebrated a new and very modern world. All
forms of design were effected - from clothing to interiors - and
society in general was subsequently influenced. Art Deco is perhaps
best known for its contradictions and eclectic nature - along with
its fabulous celebration of luxury and glamour.
The movement that shaped the 20th century continues to intrigue
and fascinate people today - as was made obvious by the Art Deco
exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum, which opened in early
Spring 2003, in conjunction with the launch of this book, and proved
hugely popular.
Essential Art Deco explores the iconography of Art Deco
with particular emphasis on six particular influences - traditional
motifs, stylised nature, the exotic, geometry and abstraction, the
city and the machine, and streamlining. All the sections are beautifully
illustrated, with images ranging from an exquisite pink cloche hat
to a fabulous white car - perhaps the most enjoyable part of reading
this book. Each example is explained against a background of information
concerning its specific influences and style. The theme of the relationship
between Art Deco, the machine and the city was explored by the V&A's
exhibition. It was also studied in the main catalogue, an exemplary
piece of scholarship.
Essential Art Deco's strength is that it is small publication,
designed as an introduction to the subject, yet the ideas are not
dumbed down. Wood writes succinctly on her subject, ‘From the
real skyscrapers of New York to the fantasy skylines of the German
Expressionist film, Metropolis (1926), the city became one
of the most resonant symbols of modernity. Innumerable films of
the 1920s and 1930s used the city to denote a modern world with
new values and lifestyles. Artists explored the infrastructure of
the city, its transport systems, roads and bridges, to symbolise
an increasingly mechanised and frenetic environment, while the skyscraper
became the most evocative icon of the modern age. Art Deco designers
plundered this imagery in search of a meaningful modern iconography’.2
This book is an excellent introduction to the subject of Art Deco
and particularly suitable for students.
Christiana Spens
1. Wood G. Essential Art Deco. London: V&A Publications, 2003:
6.
2. Ibid, p.72.
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