Encyclopedia of Art Deco: An Illustrated Guide to a Decorative Style From 1920 to 1939

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0525246134 ISBN 13: 9780525246138

Publisher: E.P. Dutton, 1988

Art Deco style, in all its manifestations, is represented with over 350 illustrations. The text, written by the world's leading authorities at auction houses and major galleries, explores jewelry, lighting design, furniture, architecture, and more, for a fuller appreciation and understanding of this important period.

From Publishers Weekly:

"Art deco," Duncan (American Art Deco, etc.) explains, "is not always easy to define." The various authors of the chapters on architecture, sculpture, furniture and interior decoration, painting, bookbinding, glass, metalwork, textiles, jewelry, etc., fail to come up with even a working definition; they use terms and hypotheses that vary greatly, leaving the reader with the notion that anything that happened in the field between World Wars I and II falls under the rubric "art deco." The arbitrarily delineated sections consist mainly of lists of the practitioners, with a description of works by the most important ones (Rene Lalique, Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel, Erte). Often, instead of providing a needed illustration, the book refers the reader to another source where, presumably, the illustration in question can be found. A biographical listing of art deco artists and designers printed distractingly at the bottom of each page does not include several of the artists covered in the text, among them furniture designer Paul Frankl and illustrator Baron Hans Henning-Voigt.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal:

This survey of art deco, the geometrically stylized decorative art of the 1920s and 1930s that became the subject of renewed interest from the 1960s on, was written by a team of experts under the editorship of an art deco specialist at Christie's in New York City. Individual chapters cover art deco architecture, sculpture, glass, furniture, painting, jewelry, ceramics, etc; throughout, short paragraphs offer biographical information on the individual artists and artisans of the art deco movement. Many plates, about a fourth in color, supply good visual reference. Recommended for large public libraries and for art history collections where needed.Hara L. Seltzer, NYPL
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.