Art Deco was a movement characterized by geometric shapes, designs, and feminine essences. It spanned from fashion to building design, like the woman and Chrysler Building below. The movement was not known as art deco until the 1960’s. Art Deco was in a way an extension of the Art Nouveau movement. It was an international movement however the United States was one of the last countries to be encompassed. Art deco changed the way buildings were built. The clean, flowing lines were a sharp contract to the previous opulence of the Victorian era.

Art Deco was a mass movement all over the world. There was an International Art Exposition in October of 1925 countries from all over the world participated showcasing their brightest artists off to the world. The United States, however, did not attend. Alastair Duncan discussed this in his book stating, “Secretary of Commerce, Herbert Hoover, felt that it [The United States] could not meet the Modernist requirements for entry laid out in the Exposition’s charter” (8). In 1925 Art Deco was viewed as the most modern form of art of its day. It was the bridge between Art Nouveau and the Modernist movement. Art Deco would have run its course completely had World War I not have extended its evolution through out the world. Art Deco did not get its name until the 1960’s, “the term ‘Art Deco,’ coined in the late 1960’s remains the most appropriate to describe the distinctive decorative arts style which evolved in Europe immediately prior to the First World War, and which remained in fashion in some countries of its adoption until the late 1930’s” (Duncan 8).

Art Deco is a combination of many forms of art. It is very geometric and very angular. Alastair Duncan described it as, “stylized bouquets of flowers, young maidens, geometric patters including zigzags, chevrons, and lightning bolts, and the ubiquitous biche (doe) – reveals further influences such as the world of high fashion, Egyptology, the Orient, tribal Africa and the ballets Russes” (8). These zigzags, chevrons, and geometric patterns can be seen in buildings such as Christ the King Church. Christ the King, “is almost square, very unlike the traditionally narrow or cross-shaped form of the Catholic Church” (Tulsa Foundation for Architecture 71). Women were often the focal point of the art in this period, such as The Girl with the Fan and the Vogue cover of March 1927. 

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Women In The 1920's

Prohibition and The Flapper

1920's Works Cited