Art Deco Exhibitions

Modernism · c. 1920–1940

Luxury, geometry, and chrome

Named after the 1925 Paris exposition, Art Deco took the flowing organic line of Art Nouveau and squared it off. It ran on stepped geometry, exotic materials such as lacquer, shagreen and chrome, and motifs borrowed from Egyptian tombs, Aztec temples and the ocean liner. Less a movement with a manifesto than a shared taste for modern glamour, it reached from Manhattan skyscrapers to cigarette cases, and remains the most widely recognised design language of the interwar years.