Art Deco Art: Posters, Prints and Paintings

In art, Art Deco means the geometric, glamorous style of the 1920s and 1930s in design, posters, fashion and architecture. The name is short for arts décoratifs, after the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts held in Paris in 1925, but the V&A notes that the term was coined only in the 1960s; at the time the style was called Style Moderne. The Getty's art vocabulary describes it by its rectilinear motifs, vibrant colors and elegant, abstracted, simplified forms.

Sources: V&A: An introduction to Art Deco · V&A: Art Deco printmakers · Getty AAT: Art Deco

Art Deco is recognized by bold geometry, vibrant color and a taste for luxury and speed. Tate says its chief difference from Art Nouveau is the influence of Cubism, which gives it a more fragmented, geometric character, and that it drew on ancient Egyptian and Aztec art and on the design of modern ships, trains and cars. The V&A names the sunburst, the zigzag and ziggurat patterns among its motifs, and the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris speaks of clean lines, geometry, symmetry and luxurious, refined materials.

Sources: Tate: Art deco · V&A: Art Deco printmakers · Musée des Arts Décoratifs: the 1925 exhibition (French)

The Art Deco era ran through the 1920s and 1930s, with roots before the First World War. The V&A dates the style from roughly 1910 to 1940 and says the Paris exhibition of 1925 launched it on a global scale. After the stock market crash of 1929 its optimism faded; by the mid-1930s it was derided as a gaudy, false image of luxury, and it went out of fashion around 1940.

Sources: V&A: Art Deco printmakers · V&A: An introduction to Art Deco

Art Deco started in Paris. The Musée des Arts Décoratifs says the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts of 1925, planned before the First World War to make a break with Art Nouveau, consecrated the style. The V&A says the exhibition brought together thousands of designers from all over Europe and beyond, among them the furniture designer Émile-Jacques Ruhlmann and the glass designer René Lalique.

Sources: Musée des Arts Décoratifs: the 1925 exhibition (French) · V&A: An introduction to Art Deco

The best-known Art Deco artists include the painter Tamara de Lempicka, the poster designer A. M. Cassandre, the fashion illustrator Erté, the glass designer René Lalique and the furniture designer Émile-Jacques Ruhlmann. Among poster artists and illustrators, the V&A also names Edward McKnight Kauffer, Roger Broders, George Barbier and Georges Lepape. Lempicka, Cassandre and Erté died after 1955, so their work is still in copyright, but the posters of Leonetto Cappiello, Broders, Achille Mauzan and Charles Gesmar, who died between 1928 and 1953, are now in the public domain.

Sources: V&A: A short history of the poster · V&A: Art Deco printmakers · V&A: An introduction to Art Deco · Centre Pompidou: Tamara de Lempicka, Jeune fille en vert · Getty ULAN: Tamara de Lempicka · Getty ULAN: Cassandre · Getty ULAN: Erté · Getty ULAN: Leonetto Cappiello · Bibliothèque nationale de France: Roger Broders (1883-1953), poster record (French) · Getty ULAN: Achille Mauzan · Getty ULAN: Charles Gesmar

No, not in most countries. Lempicka died in 1980, so her paintings are protected until 70 years after her death wherever copyright lasts that long; the Centre Pompidou credits its Young Woman in Green to her estate and the French rights society ADAGP. The same holds for Cassandre, who died in 1968, and Erté, who died in 1990, so we do not show their work. In the United States, works first published before 1931 are in the public domain, but we follow the stricter rule.

Sources: Centre Pompidou: Tamara de Lempicka, Jeune fille en vert · Getty ULAN: Tamara de Lempicka · Getty ULAN: Cassandre · Getty ULAN: Erté · Cornell University Library: Copyright Term and the Public Domain

Art Nouveau, from the 1890s to 1914, is built on flowing curves taken from plants; Art Deco, which followed after the First World War, prefers geometry. Tate calls Art Deco both a successor to and a reaction against Art Nouveau, and says its chief difference is the influence of Cubism, although plant forms and curves remained in some Art Deco design. The V&A says the same of posters: the excessive ornament of Art Nouveau gave way to more angular Art Deco designs.

Sources: Tate: Art deco · Tate: Art nouveau · V&A: A short history of the poster

Art Deco posters are the advertising and travel posters of the 1920s and 1930s, printed as color lithographs and built on bold, simplified shapes. The V&A says they marveled at cruise ships and high-speed trains, as in the work of A. M. Cassandre and Edward McKnight Kauffer. Railways such as the Paris-Lyon-Méditerranée commissioned posters of their destinations from Roger Broders, and drink and food brands hired Leonetto Cappiello, Jean d'Ylen and Achille Mauzan.

Sources: V&A: A short history of the poster · V&A: Art Deco printmakers · V&A: Café Martin (Leonetto Cappiello, 1924) · Poster House: Chantier Houiller (Jean d'Ylen) · Poster House: M. Alvarez (Achille Mauzan)

Art Deco illustration is the fashion and magazine art of the 1910s to the 1930s. The V&A says the Gazette du Bon Ton, published in Paris from 1912 to 1925, employed the best illustrators of the day, had exclusive contracts with fashion houses and printed its plates on expensive paper, with jewel-like colors added by hand through stencils. Its artists included George Barbier and Georges Lepape, and Erté designed the bulk of the covers of Harper's Bazaar, 240 in all, until 1937.

Sources: V&A: L'Heure du Rendez-vous (Gazette du Bon Ton, 1920) · V&A: Art Deco printmakers

Art Deco was a decorative style that loved luxury and ornament; the Bauhaus was a German school of art, architecture and design that set out to bring art back into everyday life. Tate says Walter Gropius founded the Bauhaus in Weimar in 1919, that it moved to Dessau in 1925–26 and that the Nazis closed it in Berlin in 1933. The two met: Tate notes that Art Deco also drew on the modern architecture and design of the Bauhaus and of Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe.

Sources: Tate: Bauhaus · Tate: Art deco

Art Deco faded with the Depression and the Second World War. The V&A says the optimism of the 1920s declined after the stock market crash of 1929; by the mid-1930s the style was derided as a gaudy, false image of luxury, and by the outbreak of war the hostility had become intense. It went out of fashion around 1940, the V&A adds, and came back in a huge revival in the 1960s and smaller ones from the 1980s.

Sources: V&A: An introduction to Art Deco · V&A: Art Deco printmakers

In design, posters and fashion, the look of the 1920s was Art Deco. The V&A calls it a style about pleasure and modernity that reflected fast-paced city life with bold geometric forms, and says designers eagerly absorbed the visual language of avant-garde movements such as Cubism, Futurism and De Stijl to capture the dynamism of the modern world. In Germany, the Bauhaus school, founded in 1919, set out to bring art back into everyday life.

Sources: V&A: Art Deco printmakers · V&A: An introduction to Art Deco · Tate: Bauhaus

Much of it is. The famous Art Deco posters and prints we chose are all dated 1930 or earlier, by artists who died in 1955 or earlier, so they are in the public domain both in the United States and in countries where copyright ends 70 years after the artist's death, and you can download them free. Posters first published in 1931 or later may still be protected in the United States, so check the date if you publish there. Much of the best-known Art Deco art, by Lempicka, Cassandre and Erté, is still in copyright.

Sources: Cornell University Library: Copyright Term and the Public Domain