ART DECO GRAPHICS

Here is the first full-scale study of the dynamic graphic design created in the three decades before World War II, when economic and political upheaval mixed with a wild pursuit of gaiety, luxury, modernism, and elegance to produce a style that came to be known as Art Deco. Art Deco style grew in several distinct directions out of an extraordinarily rich cultural melting pot. Breaking sharply with its predecessor, Art Nouveau, Art Deco assimilated the ideas of the vibrant avant-garde art movements such as Cubism, Constructivism, and Futurism; the early modernist applied-arts groups like the Vienna Secession and Bauhaus; and the leading fashion designers—Paul Poiret, Coco Chanel, and others. A flavor of Orientalism from Diaghilev's sensational Ballets Russes; the influences of American jazz, primitive art, and Egyptian culture; and the new world of machines all contributed to the development of a design style that radically changed the way visual communication is perceived in most of the world. By the time the great Paris Exposition des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes opened in 1925, the masters of modern art—Picasso, Léger, Kandinsky, and others—had transformed the graphic arts. Their visual tactics—abstractions, multidirectional views, distortion, extreme contrasts, and striking color juxtapositions—were put to use by a rising generation of brilliant graphic designers such as Cassandre, Jean Carlu, Herbert Bayer, and E.McKnight-Kauffer to create superb graphics for both commerce and social purposes. With chapters on posters, magazines, commercial design, books, and fashion and costume, Art Deco Graphics is both a sourcebook and an inspiration for designers, illustrators, art directors, photographers, scholars, collectors, and anyone interested in the graphic style of one of the most exciting periods in history. 476 illustrations, 248 in color.

Patricia Frantz Kery is also the author of Great Magazine Covers of the World.