El Cid Gallery

Art Deco

Art Deco is a movement in the decorative arts and architecture that originated in the 1920s and developed into a major style. Art Deco design represented modernism turned into fashion. Its products included both individually crafted luxury items and mass-produced wares. The intention was to create a sleek and anti-traditional elegance that symbolized wealth and sophistication.

Among the formative influences on Art Deco were Art Nouveau, the Bauhaus, Cubism, and Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. Decorative ideas came from American Indian, Egyptian, and early classical sources as well as from nature. Characteristic motifs included nude female figures, animals, foliage, and sunrays, all in conventionalized forms. Although the style went out of fashion during World War II, beginning in the late 1960s there was a renewed interest in Art Deco design.

The distinguishing features of the style are simple, clean shapes, often with a streamlined look, ornament that is geometric or stylized from representational forms and unusually varied.