Art Deco ArtistsNone of the painters of the early 20th century would have thought of themselves as "Art Deco Artists". The term Art Deco didn't come into use until the 1960s when it was adopted as a term to describe the style of decorative arts which was celebrated at the 1925 Paris Exhibition "L'Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes".
However, the avant-garde painters, sculptors and artists of the time had an enormous influence on the style we came to know as
Art Deco.
Among the artistic movements of the time: Fauvism,
Cubism,
Futurism, Dadaism, Surrealism, Bauhaus, all of these were to have a profound influence on
Art Deco Posters,
the decorative arts,
fashion
and
architecture
of the Machine Age. A statement made in the Futurist manifesto of 1910 gives us a taste of the ethos of the Art Deco era which desired "to express the vortex of modern life - a life of steel, fever, pride and headlong speed".
The new century brought enormous change in the field of art. The soft focus and the pastel colours of the Impressionists and the Art Nouveau movements were replaced by brash colours, the strong functional lines of the Machine Age and a tendency towards the abstract. "A Pot of Paint has been flung in the face of the public". So said the critics after the exhibition at the Salon D'Automne held by Matisse and colleagues such as Andre Derain and Raoul Dufy in 1905. The object of criticism was Matisses's "Woman with Hat", but fortunately for Matisse's moral it was bought by Gertrude Stein, an influential art collector and friend of Picasso. The group became known as the Fauves - or "wild beasts" taken from the jibes of yet another critic. Matisse later further embraced the orientialism of the age, while Raoul Dufy went on to paint countless views of the Riviera, the South of France having become the playground for the rich and famous.
Cubism with its straight lines and flat,two dimensional forms was perhaps the greatest influence on Art Deco Artists. The Cubist painters turned centuries of artistic tradition on its head with their rejection of perspective. Picasso and Braque are regarded as the pioneers of Cubist Art with Picasso's Demoiselles d'Avignon the starting point in the movement. The pair worked together in Paris and Catalonia for many years from 1908 onwards. Paris was a hotbed of the avant-garde with the radical new artists such as Fernand Leger,
Robert Delaunay,
Jean Metzinger and Albert Gleizes banding together to exhibit at the Salon d'Automne. Their Cubist exhibitions created an uproar, and may not have been popular amongst the general public, but had a lasting effect of the style of the age, filtering down into the more commercial arts of
poster design,
advertising, fashion and architecture.
Controversial and regarded by the right-wing as depraved and degenerate, Cubism as a movement was all but over by WWI, with the artists dispersing and many moving on to new ideas. The Salon Cubists led by Raymond and Marcel Duchamp became known as the Section d'Or. Raymond sadly died as a result of typhus contracted on the front line, but his brother Marcel went on to become a huge celebrity in New York and caused a stir with his Dadaist "anti-art" ideas. Many Artists of the
Art Deco period,
who had an influence on the style we now think of as Art Deco passed through the Weimar Bauhaus. Founded in 1919, for 14 years it was a clearing house for many of the foremost artists, painters, designers and architects of the period. Paul Klee, Kandinsky, Moholy-Nagy and Mies van der Rohe are a few examples of the greats who went through this school. The work produced there reflected the obsession with form and functionality, the rational and the machine, and blurred the traditional boundaries between areas of design, art and craft, and architecture. Closely related to the Bauhaus was the De Stijl movement in the Netherlands led by Piet Mondrian, and the Russian School "Vhutkemas" where El Lissitzky was a teacher. There are a number of Art Deco artists, who were well-known at the time, and perhaps reflect the Art Deco style more closely than the better known avant-garde giants. Jean Dupas painted murals for Emile Jacque Ruhlmann's pavillion at the 1925 Paris Exhibition, and many murals and screens for the "Normandie". They were rich and exotic and great examples of the Art Deco Style.
Lastly, one of the most popular Art Deco Artists, particularly in the United States, was Louis Icart. Born in France, his works captured both Parisian chic and Hollywood glamour, his models often nonchalently holding a cigarette holder and accompnied by a greyhound or Borzoi. His erotic paintings, lithographs, and etchings captured the risqué mood of the Art Deco era.
Some of these lesser Art Deco artists, for a long time regarded as garish or kitch, are now becoming better known and appreciated as they captured the Art Deco style more closely than much of the "Fine Art" of the period, being more accessible and less on the cutting edge of the avant-garde. For more on Art Deco Artists click on:
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