Incollect Magazine - Issue 10

90 www.incollect.com ANNIVER ARY th rt Deco is 100 years old and to mark the occasion museums all over the world have joined together to present exhibitions, lectures, and even a period-themed ball in celebration of one of the world’s most influential design and architecture movements. Art Deco is an abbreviation of “Arts Décoratifs,” French for decorative art. It was coined to characterize the newly “modernist” decorative arts and design exhibited at the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes in Paris in 1925. The style embraced geometric forms, bold colors, and an overall air of elegance and luxury, bridging the gap between organic Art Nouveau and the sleek machine-made world of modernism. Art Deco spread in popularity throughout Europe and America in the 1920s, having a profound influence on creative fields as diverse as art, fashion, design, architecture, and film. But the qualities in design that defined Art Deco — fine craftsmanship, elegance, bold colors, and expensive materials — made it an elite style and it fell out of favor following the Great Depression and the rise of the utilitarian, mass-produced modernism of the Bauhaus. Today the aesthetic legacy of Art Deco lives on in everything from skyscrapers such as the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building in New York to the architectural complex that is the Palais de Tokyo in Paris. Claridge’s, the iconic London hotel, was redesigned in Art Deco style in the late 1920s by architect Basil Ionides. Designers as diverse as Karl Springer and Peter Marino have expressed admiration and debt to Art Deco aesthetics. Furniture and interior designers Jules Leleu, Émile-Jacques Ruhlmann, Jacques Adnet, glass artist René Lalique, jeweler Louis Cartier, artists Tamara de Lempicka and Erté, and furniture designer and couturier Paul Poiret are just some of the names we associate today with the flourishing of Art Deco in Europe and America in the opening decades of the 20th century. They also feature prominently in the exhibitions throughout 2025 celebrating the centennial of the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes. Here are some exhibitions and events related to the Art Deco centenary happening in 2025. ART DECO’