Art Deco: 50 Works Of Art You Should Know

by Lynn Federle Orr

This highly accessible overview of Art Deco, embraces nearly every artistic medium— offering paintings and photography to furnishings and film—through fifty superb examples of Art Deco style that reveal the period’s richness and range. This new addition to Prestel’s successful "50s" series focuses
on Art Deco, an artistic movement that originated in France
after World War I and spread throughout Europe and America.
Presented chronologically in full-page illustrations accompanied
by explanatory texts, these fifty iconic examples demonstrate
the variety of ways Art Deco was expressed. Included here are
a soup tureen designed by Jean Puiforcat; Edward Steichen’s
portrait of Fred Astaire; a brass-framed mirror by Austrian
Franz Hagenauer; a still from the Busby Berkeley film, Footlight;
and The Portrait of a Young Girl in a Green Dress by the Polish
painter Tamara de Lempicka. Other examples include jewelry,
architecture, posters, and items used in everyday life. Opening
with an authoritative overview of the Art Deco movement and
including biographies of each of the artists, this is a compact
and affordable reference work and a beautifully designed book
for every art lover’s library.

Genres: Art, Nonfiction

128 pages, Paperback

First published October 25, 2015

Reviews

[Ryan Fohl · Rating 3 out of 5]

These books are glorified magazines, and are best read with an internet browser open so you can look up more. The introduction was well written and I feel I have a much improved idea of the origins, style, and times of Art Deco. I would have given more stars if Cincinnati’s union terminal was included.

What I learned: Platinum is stronger than silver and can hold larger diamonds, and platinum’s cheaper manufactured substitutes are called Plator, Platnor, and Osmior. I learned about the SS Normandie a true floating palace that America seized and accidentally sank during WWII. The daily express building in London is off the chain! Kizette is a name. You can make the figures in a painting feel uncomfortably close to the viewer by crowding the background. Pompon’s polar bear is my new favorite statue. Georgia O’Keeffe painted the Radiator Building, she did more than just dessert landscapes and flower vaginas. Real lacquer work is very labor intensive and can do somethings I never realized were possible.

[Hansel5 · Rating 5 out of 5]

While at the shop at the Wolfsonian in Miami Beach over the Christmas holidays, I saw this title. I perused it and decided to get a copy. Enjoyed it. I learned about many artists I hadn't known before. The pioneers were mostly French with some exceptions.