A R T D E C O1 9 1 0 – 1 9 3 9

AR

T D

EC

O1910–1939

Edited by Charlotte Benton, Tim Benton and GHISLAINE WOOD

13

Art Deco is the name given to the ‘modern’, but

not Modernist, twentieth-century style that

came to worldwide prominence in the inter-war years

and left its mark on nearly every visual medium, from

fine art, architecture and interior design, to fashion

and textiles, film and photography (plate 1.1).1

The period was one of dramatic technological

change, social upheaval and political and economic

crises, of bewildering contrasts and apocalyptic

visions.2 From the ‘Roaring Twenties’ to the

Depression, the inexorable spread of capitalism was

mirrored by that of Fascist and Communist

totalitarian regimes, while remorseless globalization

was accompanied by isolationist nationalism. At the

same time, the spread of mass-produced consumer

goods, accompanied by the perfection of promotional

methods to generate demand, prioritized visual

appeal in the seduction of the would-be consumer.

From the nouveau riche ‘flapper’ decorating her

Parisian apartment to the struggling farmer in the

American Midwest leafing through mail order

catalogues for new equipment, hope lay in novelty.

Never was fantasy so functionally necessary for

survival, whether to industry or the individual.

Part of the fascination of the style lies precisely in

its confrontation of new values with old, and in the

hint of fragility and tragedy that often lurks behind its

glitter – themes evocatively portrayed in F. Scott

Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby (1925).3 And, as

revolutions in transportation and communication

opened up the world, not only to the wealthy traveller

but also to the reader of popular magazines or the

cinema-goer in Bombay or Budapest, Manhattan

or Morecambe, Shanghai or Singapore, the forms of

this dream coalesced in Art Deco.

John and Ruth Vassos trenchantly identified both

the dream’s fundamental frivolity and the ruthless

commercial interests that fed it:

Feed the eye, stimulate the imagination, tickle the

appetite of the mob with pictures of pretty girls. With

pictures of legs … Weeklies, monthlies, dailies;

newspapers, news reels; from the pulpit, from the

press, from the editorial pages, from the radio; don’t

leave a surface untouched … impress the client –

million dollar budgets, human interest, sales

pressure, psychology of the consumer, consumer

demand. An edifice reaching to the skies, and built

on BUNK.4

At the same time, their own publications and

designs – like those of other Deco designers –

contributed to the fragile ‘edifice’ whose foundations

were laid by the powerful confluence of commerce

and desire (plate 1.2). It was symptomatic of this

context that Art Deco taste was communicated as

much by transitory effects – in the ‘wave of brilliant

colour’ of the new shop window displays, or in

fashion and advertising – as by more durable means.

The phenomenon was well expressed by the

American critic Edwin Avery Park writing in 1927,

‘The new spirit in design is creeping in about the

edges. It fastens first upon objects of a transitory

and frivolous nature.’5

1 The Style and the AgeCharlotte Benton and Tim Benton

1.1 Tamara de Lempicka (born in

Poland), Jeune fille en vert.

Oil on panel. Around 1927. Centre

Georges Pompidou, Paris. MNAM.

© Photo: CNAC/MNAM – Dist. RMN.

© ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London.

1.2 John Vassos, The Department

Store. Illustration from Ruth Vassos,

Contempo, New York, 1929. NAL.

13

Art Deco is the name given to the ‘modern’, but

not Modernist, twentieth-century style that

came to worldwide prominence in the inter-war years

and left its mark on nearly every visual medium, from

fine art, architecture and interior design, to fashion

and textiles, film and photography (plate 1.1).1

The period was one of dramatic technological

change, social upheaval and political and economic

crises, of bewildering contrasts and apocalyptic

visions.2 From the ‘Roaring Twenties’ to the

Depression, the inexorable spread of capitalism was

mirrored by that of Fascist and Communist

totalitarian regimes, while remorseless globalization

was accompanied by isolationist nationalism. At the

same time, the spread of mass-produced consumer

goods, accompanied by the perfection of promotional

methods to generate demand, prioritized visual

appeal in the seduction of the would-be consumer.

From the nouveau riche ‘flapper’ decorating her

Parisian apartment to the struggling farmer in the

American Midwest leafing through mail order

catalogues for new equipment, hope lay in novelty.

Never was fantasy so functionally necessary for

survival, whether to industry or the individual.

Part of the fascination of the style lies precisely in

its confrontation of new values with old, and in the

hint of fragility and tragedy that often lurks behind its

glitter – themes evocatively portrayed in F. Scott

Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby (1925).3 And, as

revolutions in transportation and communication

opened up the world, not only to the wealthy traveller

but also to the reader of popular magazines or the

cinema-goer in Bombay or Budapest, Manhattan

or Morecambe, Shanghai or Singapore, the forms of

this dream coalesced in Art Deco.

John and Ruth Vassos trenchantly identified both

the dream’s fundamental frivolity and the ruthless

commercial interests that fed it:

Feed the eye, stimulate the imagination, tickle the

appetite of the mob with pictures of pretty girls. With

pictures of legs … Weeklies, monthlies, dailies;

newspapers, news reels; from the pulpit, from the

press, from the editorial pages, from the radio; don’t

leave a surface untouched … impress the client –

million dollar budgets, human interest, sales

pressure, psychology of the consumer, consumer

demand. An edifice reaching to the skies, and built

on BUNK.4

At the same time, their own publications and

designs – like those of other Deco designers –

contributed to the fragile ‘edifice’ whose foundations

were laid by the powerful confluence of commerce

and desire (plate 1.2). It was symptomatic of this

context that Art Deco taste was communicated as

much by transitory effects – in the ‘wave of brilliant

colour’ of the new shop window displays, or in

fashion and advertising – as by more durable means.

The phenomenon was well expressed by the

American critic Edwin Avery Park writing in 1927,

‘The new spirit in design is creeping in about the

edges. It fastens first upon objects of a transitory

and frivolous nature.’5

1 The Style and the AgeCharlotte Benton and Tim Benton

1.1 Tamara de Lempicka (born in

Poland), Jeune fille en vert.

Oil on panel. Around 1927. Centre

Georges Pompidou, Paris. MNAM.

© Photo: CNAC/MNAM – Dist. RMN.

© ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London.

1.2 John Vassos, The Department

Store. Illustration from Ruth Vassos,

Contempo, New York, 1929. NAL.

68

Sources and Iconography

69

Inspiration from the East

the years after the First World War the number of

books and articles written about Chinese art far

exceeded that written about Japan.6 There were

various reasons for this: Japan was no longer much

of a mystery and its art had ceased to be a novelty;

excavations in China brought the art of early periods

to the attention of the West for the first time;7 and,

most importantly, certain types of Chinese art were

attributed a particular cultural significance, a subject

that will be explored in more detail later in this essay.

In all, it was ‘hard to recall so fundamental a

revolution in the opinions of the world of arts as the

marked change of attitudes towards Chinese art

among the leaders of artistic thought’.8 A number

of important exhibitions of Chinese art took place

in Europe and America in the period, culminating in

1935 in the International Exhibition of Chinese Art

held at Burlington House in London, which featured

over 3,000 exhibits dating from the Neolithic period

to the eighteenth century.

Art Deco designers were drawn to various aspects

of Chinese art and design. The powerful, mysterious

motifs on ancient Shang and Zhou dynasty bronzes,

the elegant shapes and monochrome glazes of Sung

and Yuan dynasty ceramics, the simple lines of

Ming and Qing dynasty hardwood furniture and the

geometric forms and motifs common to much

Chinese decorative art and architecture, all provided

inspiration.9 Interest in China was also aroused by

the work of the Russian émigré artist Alexandre

Iacovleff, who became famous in Paris in the 1920s

for his striking paintings and drawings of East Asia,

particularly the Chinese theatre (plate 6.3). Iacovleff

later accompanied the two momentous expeditions

led by Georges-Marie Haardt and financed by André

Citroën (see Chapter 11), the second of which, the

Croisière Jaune (1931-2), made the overland journey

across Asia from the Mediterranean to the East

China Sea.

The influence of Japan, and more especially China,

was evident in many aspects of Art Deco design.

In fashion the impact of Asia was apparent in the

abandonment of tightly corseted, highly structured

garments in favour of less tailored lengths of fabric

that wrapped or draped the body. In the 1920s this

was seen in evening coats that enveloped the wearer

and in the cylindrical line of the archetypal ‘flapper’

dress, in which the flattened forms and straight

seams of Asian garments found their most visible

manifestation. The Japanese kimono was the most

obvious source for such styles, but the advent of

rounded necklines and tubular sleeves revealed the

influence of Chinese garments.10 Many fashion plates

of the period were reminiscent of Japanese prints of

beautiful women, but the settings were often more

Chinese-inspired (plate 6.4). The patterns on clothes

were also more Chinese than Japanese in style.

Dragons chased around the waistband of one of the

gowns Paquin created for the 1925 Exhibition, while

the sequin and diamanté cloud-like motifs on the

rest of the garment echoed those found on Chinese

robes (plates 6.1 and 6.5).

Similar elements were seen in Art Deco jewellery.

Several of Cartier’s cigarette and vanity cases derived

from Japanese inro-,11 but on the whole the Chinese

influence on jewellery was far more apparent.

This was seen in the predominance of stylized and

geometric motifs, the popularity of tasselled

pendants (see plate 24.16) and, most importantly,

in the use of materials. Cartier often used lacquer

inlaid with mother-of-pearl taken from Chinese bowls,

trays or tables.12 However, the material most

favoured for the creation of modern, colourful and

exotic jewellery was jade. ‘Jade is all the rage at

present’, declared one journal in 1922. ‘It owes its

popularity, no doubt, both to its romantic association

with the gorgeous East and prehistoric art, and to

the beauty of its delicate colour.’13

6.3 General Ma-Soo in The Retreat of Kiai-Ting.

Illustration from Chu-Chia-Chein and Alexandre Iacovleff,

The Chinese Theatre, London, 1922. NAL.

6.4 Georges Lepape, ‘La belle dame sans merci’, evening gown by

Worth. La Gazette du bon ton, Paris, 1921. NAL. ©ADAPG, Paris and

DACS, London 2002.

6.5 Jeanne Paquin, ‘Chimère’,

evening gown. Beaded silk. French,

1925. V&A: T.50-1948.

68

Sources and Iconography

69

Inspiration from the East

the years after the First World War the number of

books and articles written about Chinese art far

exceeded that written about Japan.6 There were

various reasons for this: Japan was no longer much

of a mystery and its art had ceased to be a novelty;

excavations in China brought the art of early periods

to the attention of the West for the first time;7 and,

most importantly, certain types of Chinese art were

attributed a particular cultural significance, a subject

that will be explored in more detail later in this essay.

In all, it was ‘hard to recall so fundamental a

revolution in the opinions of the world of arts as the

marked change of attitudes towards Chinese art

among the leaders of artistic thought’.8 A number

of important exhibitions of Chinese art took place

in Europe and America in the period, culminating in

1935 in the International Exhibition of Chinese Art

held at Burlington House in London, which featured

over 3,000 exhibits dating from the Neolithic period

to the eighteenth century.

Art Deco designers were drawn to various aspects

of Chinese art and design. The powerful, mysterious

motifs on ancient Shang and Zhou dynasty bronzes,

the elegant shapes and monochrome glazes of Sung

and Yuan dynasty ceramics, the simple lines of

Ming and Qing dynasty hardwood furniture and the

geometric forms and motifs common to much

Chinese decorative art and architecture, all provided

inspiration.9 Interest in China was also aroused by

the work of the Russian émigré artist Alexandre

Iacovleff, who became famous in Paris in the 1920s

for his striking paintings and drawings of East Asia,

particularly the Chinese theatre (plate 6.3). Iacovleff

later accompanied the two momentous expeditions

led by Georges-Marie Haardt and financed by André

Citroën (see Chapter 11), the second of which, the

Croisière Jaune (1931-2), made the overland journey

across Asia from the Mediterranean to the East

China Sea.

The influence of Japan, and more especially China,

was evident in many aspects of Art Deco design.

In fashion the impact of Asia was apparent in the

abandonment of tightly corseted, highly structured

garments in favour of less tailored lengths of fabric

that wrapped or draped the body. In the 1920s this

was seen in evening coats that enveloped the wearer

and in the cylindrical line of the archetypal ‘flapper’

dress, in which the flattened forms and straight

seams of Asian garments found their most visible

manifestation. The Japanese kimono was the most

obvious source for such styles, but the advent of

rounded necklines and tubular sleeves revealed the

influence of Chinese garments.10 Many fashion plates

of the period were reminiscent of Japanese prints of

beautiful women, but the settings were often more

Chinese-inspired (plate 6.4). The patterns on clothes

were also more Chinese than Japanese in style.

Dragons chased around the waistband of one of the

gowns Paquin created for the 1925 Exhibition, while

the sequin and diamanté cloud-like motifs on the

rest of the garment echoed those found on Chinese

robes (plates 6.1 and 6.5).

Similar elements were seen in Art Deco jewellery.

Several of Cartier’s cigarette and vanity cases derived

from Japanese inro-,11 but on the whole the Chinese

influence on jewellery was far more apparent.

This was seen in the predominance of stylized and

geometric motifs, the popularity of tasselled

pendants (see plate 24.16) and, most importantly,

in the use of materials. Cartier often used lacquer

inlaid with mother-of-pearl taken from Chinese bowls,

trays or tables.12 However, the material most

favoured for the creation of modern, colourful and

exotic jewellery was jade. ‘Jade is all the rage at

present’, declared one journal in 1922. ‘It owes its

popularity, no doubt, both to its romantic association

with the gorgeous East and prehistoric art, and to

the beauty of its delicate colour.’13

6.3 General Ma-Soo in The Retreat of Kiai-Ting.

Illustration from Chu-Chia-Chein and Alexandre Iacovleff,

The Chinese Theatre, London, 1922. NAL.

6.4 Georges Lepape, ‘La belle dame sans merci’, evening gown by

Worth. La Gazette du bon ton, Paris, 1921. NAL. ©ADAPG, Paris and

DACS, London 2002.

6.5 Jeanne Paquin, ‘Chimère’,

evening gown. Beaded silk. French,

1925. V&A: T.50-1948.

258

The Spread of Deco

259

Art Deco Architecture

was organized in gilded concentric curves which, with

the manipulation of complex lighting effects,

recreated a golden sunset before every performance

(plate 22.15).61 These ‘acres of seats in gardens of

dreams’ brought spectacle and escapism into the

heart of urban communities across the world, despite

the Depression. Art Deco, with its magically

illuminated surfaces supported by the latest

structural sleight of hand, provided the necessary

language to create this miracle, and Hollywood’s use

of top designers, including many European

immigrants, to confect fabulous Art Deco settings for

their films, completed the illusion (see Chapter 30).

The Streamline Moderne style was a variant of Art

Deco particularly important in America (see Chapters

33 and 34). Innumerable small roadside structures,

dependent on their dramatic external form to catch

the eye, spread Art Deco imagery nationwide. Diners,

high street shops and petrol stations competed for

attention, often brilliantly clothed in stainless steel or

rendered concrete and always dramatically picked

out with neon light at night.62

A theme that links Modern Movement and Art

Deco architecture is the dramatic use of electricity to

provide a new experience, that of ‘night architecture’.

Where the Modernists used structural transparency

to allow internal illumination to make an impact

at night, Art Deco designers began to develop a new

language of pure lighting. Exhibitions, cinemas and

department stores gave a lead, but soon applied

neon lighting and the use of lighting troughs to

conceal coloured light sources began to compose the

streetscape at night.

An important precedent was set by the annual

Salon de l’automobile and Salon de l’aéronautique in

Paris. For more than a decade, beginning in 1926,

the Grand Palais was given a dramatic lighting grid by

André Granet and Roger-Henri Expert. Their

transformations, to celebrate the most modern forms

of transportation, embraced both completely artificial

decorative effects – like a coloured floral canopy –

and rigidly geometrical arrangements. They were a

revelation to architects (plate 22.16). To see the

massive tubular steel structures required to support

these arrays of millions of light bulbs is to grasp

instantly the difference between an architecture of

display and one of ‘rationalism’. Similarly, the lighting

schemes perfected for other major national and

international exhibitions after 1925 became an

autonomous science of self-determining construction.

Experimentally displayed in exhibition design, curving

forms intended only to reflect and project light

grew their own organic forms. These, and scalloped

fronds, repeating step-backs in gold or silver, and

syncopated contour lines in shallow relief, became

the essential building blocks for the Art Deco

interior.63

Art Deco architecture was a modern but not

Modernist architecture. It developed from the

application of Deco ornament to classical or

Modernist buildings into a new kind of building

capable of expressing the aspirations of dynamically

developing consumerist societies. This was a popular

style, occasionally vulgar but bursting with vitality, in

striking contrast with the more austere forms of

Modernism. The criticisms levelled against the latter

by Post-modern architects like Robert Venturi and

Denise Scott Brown, from the 1960s onwards, would

have been shared by Art Deco architects.64 Venturi

and Scott Brown valued the ‘fun’ of Art Deco

architecture and played an active role in preserving

it. The human values of desire, warmth, sensuality

and anecdotal incident were embodied in Art Deco

skyscrapers, cinemas and other commercial buildings

in a way that was excluded by Modernism. The Post-

modern vision of modern life as a fragmentary and

illusory spectacle, as characterized by Jean

Baudrillard and others, which has challenged the

claimed rationalism of the Modernists, was prefigured

22.15 Donald Deskey &

Associated Architects, RCA

Music Hall, New York. 1933.

Museum of the City of

New York. Theatre Collection.

22.16 André Granet, colour rendering of the 1928 Exposition

de locomotion aérienne at the Grand Palais, Paris. Gouache on

paper. French, c.1928. Fonds Granet, IFA.

by Art Deco architects.65 As one of their supporters,

Edwin Avery Park, wrote in 1927: ‘Life seems to have

become fragmentary, a thing to be caught in

passing’; and (quoting from the philosopher Will

Durant), ‘inductive data fall upon us from all sides

like lava of Vesuvius; we suffocate with

uncoordinated facts; our minds are overwhelmed

with sciences breeding and multiplying into specialist

chaos for want of synthetic thought and a unifying

philosophy. We are all mere fragments of what man

might be.’66

If the Modernist project was to supply the unifying

philosophy, Art Deco faithfully mirrored the times and

gave it an imaginative spark. And, if we accept

Baudelaire’s definition of modernity as incorporating

the ephemeral and transient alongside the universal

values of art, a case can well be made for seeing the

main line of modernity in the inter-war period as

running from the avant-garde movements of the

years around the First World War into Art Deco rather

than into the ambitious orthodoxy of Modernism.

258

The Spread of Deco

259

Art Deco Architecture

was organized in gilded concentric curves which, with

the manipulation of complex lighting effects,

recreated a golden sunset before every performance

(plate 22.15).61 These ‘acres of seats in gardens of

dreams’ brought spectacle and escapism into the

heart of urban communities across the world, despite

the Depression. Art Deco, with its magically

illuminated surfaces supported by the latest

structural sleight of hand, provided the necessary

language to create this miracle, and Hollywood’s use

of top designers, including many European

immigrants, to confect fabulous Art Deco settings for

their films, completed the illusion (see Chapter 30).

The Streamline Moderne style was a variant of Art

Deco particularly important in America (see Chapters

33 and 34). Innumerable small roadside structures,

dependent on their dramatic external form to catch

the eye, spread Art Deco imagery nationwide. Diners,

high street shops and petrol stations competed for

attention, often brilliantly clothed in stainless steel or

rendered concrete and always dramatically picked

out with neon light at night.62

A theme that links Modern Movement and Art

Deco architecture is the dramatic use of electricity to

provide a new experience, that of ‘night architecture’.

Where the Modernists used structural transparency

to allow internal illumination to make an impact

at night, Art Deco designers began to develop a new

language of pure lighting. Exhibitions, cinemas and

department stores gave a lead, but soon applied

neon lighting and the use of lighting troughs to

conceal coloured light sources began to compose the

streetscape at night.

An important precedent was set by the annual

Salon de l’automobile and Salon de l’aéronautique in

Paris. For more than a decade, beginning in 1926,

the Grand Palais was given a dramatic lighting grid by

André Granet and Roger-Henri Expert. Their

transformations, to celebrate the most modern forms

of transportation, embraced both completely artificial

decorative effects – like a coloured floral canopy –

and rigidly geometrical arrangements. They were a

revelation to architects (plate 22.16). To see the

massive tubular steel structures required to support

these arrays of millions of light bulbs is to grasp

instantly the difference between an architecture of

display and one of ‘rationalism’. Similarly, the lighting

schemes perfected for other major national and

international exhibitions after 1925 became an

autonomous science of self-determining construction.

Experimentally displayed in exhibition design, curving

forms intended only to reflect and project light

grew their own organic forms. These, and scalloped

fronds, repeating step-backs in gold or silver, and

syncopated contour lines in shallow relief, became

the essential building blocks for the Art Deco

interior.63

Art Deco architecture was a modern but not

Modernist architecture. It developed from the

application of Deco ornament to classical or

Modernist buildings into a new kind of building

capable of expressing the aspirations of dynamically

developing consumerist societies. This was a popular

style, occasionally vulgar but bursting with vitality, in

striking contrast with the more austere forms of

Modernism. The criticisms levelled against the latter

by Post-modern architects like Robert Venturi and

Denise Scott Brown, from the 1960s onwards, would

have been shared by Art Deco architects.64 Venturi

and Scott Brown valued the ‘fun’ of Art Deco

architecture and played an active role in preserving

it. The human values of desire, warmth, sensuality

and anecdotal incident were embodied in Art Deco

skyscrapers, cinemas and other commercial buildings

in a way that was excluded by Modernism. The Post-

modern vision of modern life as a fragmentary and

illusory spectacle, as characterized by Jean

Baudrillard and others, which has challenged the

claimed rationalism of the Modernists, was prefigured

22.15 Donald Deskey &

Associated Architects, RCA

Music Hall, New York. 1933.

Museum of the City of

New York. Theatre Collection.

22.16 André Granet, colour rendering of the 1928 Exposition

de locomotion aérienne at the Grand Palais, Paris. Gouache on

paper. French, c.1928. Fonds Granet, IFA.

by Art Deco architects.65 As one of their supporters,

Edwin Avery Park, wrote in 1927: ‘Life seems to have

become fragmentary, a thing to be caught in

passing’; and (quoting from the philosopher Will

Durant), ‘inductive data fall upon us from all sides

like lava of Vesuvius; we suffocate with

uncoordinated facts; our minds are overwhelmed

with sciences breeding and multiplying into specialist

chaos for want of synthetic thought and a unifying

philosophy. We are all mere fragments of what man

might be.’66

If the Modernist project was to supply the unifying

philosophy, Art Deco faithfully mirrored the times and

gave it an imaginative spark. And, if we accept

Baudelaire’s definition of modernity as incorporating

the ephemeral and transient alongside the universal

values of art, a case can well be made for seeing the

main line of modernity in the inter-war period as

running from the avant-garde movements of the

years around the First World War into Art Deco rather

than into the ambitious orthodoxy of Modernism.

278

The Spread of Deco

279

Art Deco Jewellery

novelties among which the ‘diamants mystérieux’ of

1934 stand out. These were individually mounted

diamonds with clips so discreet and strong that they

could be fixed securely to the thinnest wisp of hair or

even to the eyebrows. Cartier recommended that ten

or twelve be worn together arranged at will, pointing

out that they had the potential to ‘completely turn

upside down our idea of ornament’14 (plate 24.9).

One of the most distinctive and popular types

of jewel at this date was the double clip, a pair of

symmetrical brooches that could be worn as one

or separately. Their ubiquity can be sensed in the

contemporary comment that ‘By the end of

the twenties it had become essential to possess a

pair of diamond, or pseudo-diamond, clips. They

were clipped not only on to hats but on to everything

else, even the small of the back, where they served

to keep underclothes out of sight.’15

Pearls remained one of the most desirable of

jewels and well matched strings were of immense

value. In 1917 Cartier New York had acquired its new

premises, a large Renaissance-style town house on

Fifth Avenue, in exchange for a two-row oriental pearl

necklace. Two years later fashion commentators

noted, ‘There have never been seen so many pearl

necklaces, short and long’ and ‘Pearl necklaces no

longer go round the neck. The fashion is to let them

fall down to the waist, or lower still, and to twist them

up in any original way.’16 Imitation pearls, which had

always been available, became extremely fashionable

in the mid-Twenties. One debutante recalled,

Then came choker pearls, the size of gooseberries.

Up till then it had been thought good taste to wear

small Técla pearls of a size in proportion to one’s

income, so that they might be mistaken for real.

I was afraid that my mother would think large

chokers vulgar so I only wore mine when I was sure

that she wasn’t about.17

The following year Alphonse, the Paris correspondent

for Queen magazine, commented on the vogue for

unashamedly fake pearls, larger than walnuts and

stained in different shades to match one’s dress.18

Imitation or costume jewellery was being worn in

society quite deliberately at this time, as is clearly

shown by Chanel’s provocative statement, ‘It does

not matter if they are real as long as they look like

junk.’19 The greatest challenge to the prestige of

pearls, however, came with the arrival on the

international market of the cultured pearl, developed

commercially by Mikimoto Kokichi of Japan (see plate

35.9). It delighted consumers but sent waves of

alarm through the trade and prompted much debate

in the 1920s over the necessity of accurate trade

descriptions and protection for retailer and consumer

alike when faced with virtually indistinguishable

pieces of such vastly different values.

It was during the 1920s that the rectangular

baguette-cut for diamonds came to prominence.

Henry Wilson had noted in 1925 that ‘Much is being

made to-day in Paris of diamonds cut in rod form

“taille en bâton ou en allumette.” This has only been

general for the last two years, I am told.’20 However,

it is clear from photographs of work exhibited by

the major jewellers such as Cartier, Fouquet and

Boucheron that baguette stones were not in

widespread use in 1925 and that their design

potential had not yet been fully grasped. Around

1924 Boucheron had made a watch brooch in which

the watch hangs on a chain of baguette diamonds

individually set and arranged like rungs of a ladder,

but there are few firmly dated examples of their use

at this time. As the writer and curator Henri Clouzot

wrote in 1929, ‘Diamonds could be baguette-cut in

1925, but we were far from suspecting that cut’s

implications.’21 By 1929 the baguette had come into

its own and, together with discreet platinum mounts,

was at the centre of the ‘completely white note’ that

Georges Fouquet identified as the innovation for

that year.22 The style was featured in Paris at a

sumptuous exhibition of contemporary jewellery held

at the Palais Galliéra the same year. It was, by all

accounts, a magnificent spectacle and was written

up by Fouquet for Studio magazine with photographs

of work by Mauboussin, Chaumet and Boucheron.

Conscious of the long legacy of jewels set purely with

diamonds, Fouquet wrote,

But how new is this white stone jewellery, and how

much it differs from the old! Progress has been

made in working on the diamond, and this stone

may now be treated like the coloured stones ...

Pieces are composed and carried out which consist

of a mixture of brilliants and brilliants cut in the

forms of wands, triangles, or any other form,

allowing the artist to obtain from diamonds whatever

effect he chooses. The wand-shaped brilliants give

different reflections from the round ones, and the

most varied play of light may be obtained by

arranging them side by side.23

Further contrasts of texture and lustre were achieved

in the early 1930s with the addition of polished rock

crystal.

In the first three months of 1929 the Goldsmiths’

Journal published a series of articles illustrating

contemporary ‘modernist’ jewellery. Seventy-five

pieces were featured by designers designated

‘progressive’, including Cartier, Van Cleef & Arpels,

Boucheron, Mauboussin, Vever, Sandoz, Brandt and

Templier. Most were French, but Belgian, Swiss,

Italian and Spanish pieces were also shown. Its tone

was markedly cautious, noting that this was a more

dramatic change of fashion than usually occurred

and remaining non-committal as to whether it would

stand the test of time. In Britain there was a degree

of resistance to this new, severe style of work within

the trade, particularly among those whose training

had encouraged a more florid style and who now

failed to recognize the very real craftsmanship

required to produce such stark and minimal effects.

A writer in the Goldsmiths’ Journal bemoaned that

‘mechanical finish has eliminated the virtuosity of

technique; and, worse than that, the public have

been taught to value invisible setting above visible

craftsmanship ... they prefer mechanical perfection,

viz., sharpness, smoothness etc., before subtlety,

poetry, and invention.’24 It could be argued that

these critics were simply attuned to the

fundamentally conservative nature of their

mainstream customers. When the Prince of Wales

visited Birmingham’s jewellery quarter in May 1931

he was surprised that half-hoop and cluster rings

were still top sellers. He himself was reported as

preferring pieces in ‘the modernistic theme, where

the contour is somewhat bold, geometric in style and

set with square cut and baguette diamonds, together

with brilliants’.25 In the years that followed he was

to indulge this taste magnificently in the jewellery by

Cartier, Van Cleef & Arpels and others that he

lavished on Wallis Simpson.

The ‘modernistic’ theme was developed to its most

extreme by a small number of innovative Parisian

designers whose work was distinguished by an

uncompromising geometry that could, on occasions,

appear almost brutally stark. At the forefront of this

style were Jean Fouquet, Raymond Templier and

Gérard Sandoz, all from families long established in

the jewellery world (plates 24.10 to 24.19). Aiming

to create a new style that was sensationally modern

and rational, they broke away from the jewellery

establishment and in 1930, together with other

designers and avant-garde architects, founded the

Union des Artistes Modernes. Drawing much of its

inspiration from the strong and simple forms

associated with machine production, theirs was a

powerful and influential aesthetic. In 1930 Templier

stated, ‘As I walk in the streets I see ideas for

jewellery everywhere, the wheels, the cars, the

machinery of today. I hold myself permeable to

everything.’26 They argued too for the use of less

traditional materials in jewellery, stating in their

manifesto that ‘a beautiful material is not necessarily

rare or precious. It is above all a material whose

natural qualities or whose adaptability to industrial

processes are pleasing to the eye and to the touch,

and whose value derives from judicious use.’27

24.9 Horst P. Horst, model

wearing Cartier’s ‘diamants

mystérieux’. British Vogue,

September 1934. NAL.

© Cartier.

278

The Spread of Deco

279

Art Deco Jewellery

novelties among which the ‘diamants mystérieux’ of

1934 stand out. These were individually mounted

diamonds with clips so discreet and strong that they

could be fixed securely to the thinnest wisp of hair or

even to the eyebrows. Cartier recommended that ten

or twelve be worn together arranged at will, pointing

out that they had the potential to ‘completely turn

upside down our idea of ornament’14 (plate 24.9).

One of the most distinctive and popular types

of jewel at this date was the double clip, a pair of

symmetrical brooches that could be worn as one

or separately. Their ubiquity can be sensed in the

contemporary comment that ‘By the end of

the twenties it had become essential to possess a

pair of diamond, or pseudo-diamond, clips. They

were clipped not only on to hats but on to everything

else, even the small of the back, where they served

to keep underclothes out of sight.’15

Pearls remained one of the most desirable of

jewels and well matched strings were of immense

value. In 1917 Cartier New York had acquired its new

premises, a large Renaissance-style town house on

Fifth Avenue, in exchange for a two-row oriental pearl

necklace. Two years later fashion commentators

noted, ‘There have never been seen so many pearl

necklaces, short and long’ and ‘Pearl necklaces no

longer go round the neck. The fashion is to let them

fall down to the waist, or lower still, and to twist them

up in any original way.’16 Imitation pearls, which had

always been available, became extremely fashionable

in the mid-Twenties. One debutante recalled,

Then came choker pearls, the size of gooseberries.

Up till then it had been thought good taste to wear

small Técla pearls of a size in proportion to one’s

income, so that they might be mistaken for real.

I was afraid that my mother would think large

chokers vulgar so I only wore mine when I was sure

that she wasn’t about.17

The following year Alphonse, the Paris correspondent

for Queen magazine, commented on the vogue for

unashamedly fake pearls, larger than walnuts and

stained in different shades to match one’s dress.18

Imitation or costume jewellery was being worn in

society quite deliberately at this time, as is clearly

shown by Chanel’s provocative statement, ‘It does

not matter if they are real as long as they look like

junk.’19 The greatest challenge to the prestige of

pearls, however, came with the arrival on the

international market of the cultured pearl, developed

commercially by Mikimoto Kokichi of Japan (see plate

35.9). It delighted consumers but sent waves of

alarm through the trade and prompted much debate

in the 1920s over the necessity of accurate trade

descriptions and protection for retailer and consumer

alike when faced with virtually indistinguishable

pieces of such vastly different values.

It was during the 1920s that the rectangular

baguette-cut for diamonds came to prominence.

Henry Wilson had noted in 1925 that ‘Much is being

made to-day in Paris of diamonds cut in rod form

“taille en bâton ou en allumette.” This has only been

general for the last two years, I am told.’20 However,

it is clear from photographs of work exhibited by

the major jewellers such as Cartier, Fouquet and

Boucheron that baguette stones were not in

widespread use in 1925 and that their design

potential had not yet been fully grasped. Around

1924 Boucheron had made a watch brooch in which

the watch hangs on a chain of baguette diamonds

individually set and arranged like rungs of a ladder,

but there are few firmly dated examples of their use

at this time. As the writer and curator Henri Clouzot

wrote in 1929, ‘Diamonds could be baguette-cut in

1925, but we were far from suspecting that cut’s

implications.’21 By 1929 the baguette had come into

its own and, together with discreet platinum mounts,

was at the centre of the ‘completely white note’ that

Georges Fouquet identified as the innovation for

that year.22 The style was featured in Paris at a

sumptuous exhibition of contemporary jewellery held

at the Palais Galliéra the same year. It was, by all

accounts, a magnificent spectacle and was written

up by Fouquet for Studio magazine with photographs

of work by Mauboussin, Chaumet and Boucheron.

Conscious of the long legacy of jewels set purely with

diamonds, Fouquet wrote,

But how new is this white stone jewellery, and how

much it differs from the old! Progress has been

made in working on the diamond, and this stone

may now be treated like the coloured stones ...

Pieces are composed and carried out which consist

of a mixture of brilliants and brilliants cut in the

forms of wands, triangles, or any other form,

allowing the artist to obtain from diamonds whatever

effect he chooses. The wand-shaped brilliants give

different reflections from the round ones, and the

most varied play of light may be obtained by

arranging them side by side.23

Further contrasts of texture and lustre were achieved

in the early 1930s with the addition of polished rock

crystal.

In the first three months of 1929 the Goldsmiths’

Journal published a series of articles illustrating

contemporary ‘modernist’ jewellery. Seventy-five

pieces were featured by designers designated

‘progressive’, including Cartier, Van Cleef & Arpels,

Boucheron, Mauboussin, Vever, Sandoz, Brandt and

Templier. Most were French, but Belgian, Swiss,

Italian and Spanish pieces were also shown. Its tone

was markedly cautious, noting that this was a more

dramatic change of fashion than usually occurred

and remaining non-committal as to whether it would

stand the test of time. In Britain there was a degree

of resistance to this new, severe style of work within

the trade, particularly among those whose training

had encouraged a more florid style and who now

failed to recognize the very real craftsmanship

required to produce such stark and minimal effects.

A writer in the Goldsmiths’ Journal bemoaned that

‘mechanical finish has eliminated the virtuosity of

technique; and, worse than that, the public have

been taught to value invisible setting above visible

craftsmanship ... they prefer mechanical perfection,

viz., sharpness, smoothness etc., before subtlety,

poetry, and invention.’24 It could be argued that

these critics were simply attuned to the

fundamentally conservative nature of their

mainstream customers. When the Prince of Wales

visited Birmingham’s jewellery quarter in May 1931

he was surprised that half-hoop and cluster rings

were still top sellers. He himself was reported as

preferring pieces in ‘the modernistic theme, where

the contour is somewhat bold, geometric in style and

set with square cut and baguette diamonds, together

with brilliants’.25 In the years that followed he was

to indulge this taste magnificently in the jewellery by

Cartier, Van Cleef & Arpels and others that he

lavished on Wallis Simpson.

The ‘modernistic’ theme was developed to its most

extreme by a small number of innovative Parisian

designers whose work was distinguished by an

uncompromising geometry that could, on occasions,

appear almost brutally stark. At the forefront of this

style were Jean Fouquet, Raymond Templier and

Gérard Sandoz, all from families long established in

the jewellery world (plates 24.10 to 24.19). Aiming

to create a new style that was sensationally modern

and rational, they broke away from the jewellery

establishment and in 1930, together with other

designers and avant-garde architects, founded the

Union des Artistes Modernes. Drawing much of its

inspiration from the strong and simple forms

associated with machine production, theirs was a

powerful and influential aesthetic. In 1930 Templier

stated, ‘As I walk in the streets I see ideas for

jewellery everywhere, the wheels, the cars, the

machinery of today. I hold myself permeable to

everything.’26 They argued too for the use of less

traditional materials in jewellery, stating in their

manifesto that ‘a beautiful material is not necessarily

rare or precious. It is above all a material whose

natural qualities or whose adaptability to industrial

processes are pleasing to the eye and to the touch,

and whose value derives from judicious use.’27

24.9 Horst P. Horst, model

wearing Cartier’s ‘diamants

mystérieux’. British Vogue,

September 1934. NAL.

© Cartier.

340

The Deco World

341

lamp, in particular, a jazzy saw-tooth machine of

chrome-plated steel and glass (plate 31.5).15 While

all the furnishings were produced to order, they were

largely made of new or newly inexpensive materials

that would soon enable modern design to be

more accessible. When Deskey began collaborating

with large manufacturers in the early 1930s,

the materials used in the ‘Man’s Smoking Room’ –

aluminium for the ceiling, cork for the walls,

chrome-plated metal for furniture, Vitrolite and

Bakelite for the table tops, linoleum for the floor –

would truly become indicators of modernity for

the middle classes.

This vocabulary of angularity, of abstracted

geometric forms, was recognized at the time as a

commercial dissemination of the principles of

Cubism. Assessing what he considered the dominant

style of the Paris 1925 Exhibition, one reviewer

declared, ‘architects, furniture makers, and

decorative designers uniformly apply the principles of

composition introduced by Pablo Picasso, Georges

Braque, and Juan Gris’.16 In addition to Deskey, other

American designers mastered these principles as

well. At the American Designers’ Gallery exhibition,

Ilonka Karasz provided the cover of the catalogue

and showed work in a wide range of media, among

them Cubist-inspired silver plated vases, bowls and

candlesticks (plate 31.6). Born and trained in

Budapest, Karasz was well steeped in other currents

of the avant-garde and manipulated them to form

her own distinct style. A bold, sanserif Bauhaus

typography distinguishes her catalogue cover; textile

designs reveal the influence of German Expressionist

painting as well as traditional folk art. Karasz was

the only woman designer commissioned to supply

complete rooms at the exhibition. Her geometric,

brightly coloured children’s nursery was considered

‘one of the gayest, jolliest and most practical rooms

ever designed for a child’;17 Arts and Decoration

declared it the first nursery ‘ever designed for the

very modern American child’.18

Many critics, designers and style-conscious

consumers welcomed the adaptation of the latest

European fashions, and they were convinced that

these permutations could be developed ‘into a

distinctive and distinguished style as subtly different

from its European inspiration as Early American

furniture and interiors are different from their English

and French ancestry’.19 Even more desirable,

however, would be a style that came more directly

from the country’s own experiences and

achievements. By 1930, many articles and books

addressed the issue of a distinctly American

expression of modernity – what designer Paul Frankl

called the ‘new spirit manifest in every phase of

American life’. As he elaborated in his influential

book Form and Reform: A Practical Handbook of

Modern Interiors: ‘This spirit finds expression in

skyscrapers, motor-cars, aeroplanes, in new ocean

liners, in department stores and great industrial

plants. Speed, compression, directness – these are

its attributes.’20

Frankl was one of the designers who embraced the

Manhattan set-back skyscraper as the building type

that most captured the spirit of American innovation

– and then adapted it to furnishings. With its

characteristic form a response to a city ordinance

requiring all buildings over a certain height to be set

back so that light could reach the street, the

skyscraper embodied civic pride, industrial prowess

and a complete break with the past. Although

Frankl’s line of ‘skyscraper’ furniture was all custom

made and, therefore, too expensive for wide

distribution, it still reached a large audience through

exhibitions and publications (plate 31.7). He

displayed a whole room of skyscraper furniture at

Macy’s 1927 Art-in-Trade exhibition as well as at the

American Designers’ Gallery exhibition in 1928.

Good Furniture was only one of many journals that

wrote admiringly of the skyscraper line, declaring it

was ‘as American and as New Yorkish as Fifth

Avenue itself’.21 The skyscraper was depicted in

every possible medium – ceramics, metalwork,

textiles, paintings, photographs and prints as well

as furniture.

31.6 Ilonka Karasz (born in Hungary), vase, bowl and

candlestick. Silver-plated metal. American, c.1928. Cooper-

Hewitt, National Design Museum, Smithsonian Institution.

31.5 Donald Deskey, table lamp. Chrome-plated metal and

glass. American, c.1927. Made by Deskey-Vollmer.

Collection John P. Axelrod, Boston, MA. Courtesy Museum

of Fine Arts, Boston.

31.7 Paul T. Frankl (born in Austria),

desk and bookcase. Walnut, paint

and brass handles. American,

c.1928. For Frankl Galleries, New

York City. Collection John P. Axelrod,

Boston, MA. Courtesy Museum of

Fine Arts, Boston.

‘ The Filter of American Taste’: Design in the USA in the 1920s

340

The Deco World

341

lamp, in particular, a jazzy saw-tooth machine of

chrome-plated steel and glass (plate 31.5).15 While

all the furnishings were produced to order, they were

largely made of new or newly inexpensive materials

that would soon enable modern design to be

more accessible. When Deskey began collaborating

with large manufacturers in the early 1930s,

the materials used in the ‘Man’s Smoking Room’ –

aluminium for the ceiling, cork for the walls,

chrome-plated metal for furniture, Vitrolite and

Bakelite for the table tops, linoleum for the floor –

would truly become indicators of modernity for

the middle classes.

This vocabulary of angularity, of abstracted

geometric forms, was recognized at the time as a

commercial dissemination of the principles of

Cubism. Assessing what he considered the dominant

style of the Paris 1925 Exhibition, one reviewer

declared, ‘architects, furniture makers, and

decorative designers uniformly apply the principles of

composition introduced by Pablo Picasso, Georges

Braque, and Juan Gris’.16 In addition to Deskey, other

American designers mastered these principles as

well. At the American Designers’ Gallery exhibition,

Ilonka Karasz provided the cover of the catalogue

and showed work in a wide range of media, among

them Cubist-inspired silver plated vases, bowls and

candlesticks (plate 31.6). Born and trained in

Budapest, Karasz was well steeped in other currents

of the avant-garde and manipulated them to form

her own distinct style. A bold, sanserif Bauhaus

typography distinguishes her catalogue cover; textile

designs reveal the influence of German Expressionist

painting as well as traditional folk art. Karasz was

the only woman designer commissioned to supply

complete rooms at the exhibition. Her geometric,

brightly coloured children’s nursery was considered

‘one of the gayest, jolliest and most practical rooms

ever designed for a child’;17 Arts and Decoration

declared it the first nursery ‘ever designed for the

very modern American child’.18

Many critics, designers and style-conscious

consumers welcomed the adaptation of the latest

European fashions, and they were convinced that

these permutations could be developed ‘into a

distinctive and distinguished style as subtly different

from its European inspiration as Early American

furniture and interiors are different from their English

and French ancestry’.19 Even more desirable,

however, would be a style that came more directly

from the country’s own experiences and

achievements. By 1930, many articles and books

addressed the issue of a distinctly American

expression of modernity – what designer Paul Frankl

called the ‘new spirit manifest in every phase of

American life’. As he elaborated in his influential

book Form and Reform: A Practical Handbook of

Modern Interiors: ‘This spirit finds expression in

skyscrapers, motor-cars, aeroplanes, in new ocean

liners, in department stores and great industrial

plants. Speed, compression, directness – these are

its attributes.’20

Frankl was one of the designers who embraced the

Manhattan set-back skyscraper as the building type

that most captured the spirit of American innovation

– and then adapted it to furnishings. With its

characteristic form a response to a city ordinance

requiring all buildings over a certain height to be set

back so that light could reach the street, the

skyscraper embodied civic pride, industrial prowess

and a complete break with the past. Although

Frankl’s line of ‘skyscraper’ furniture was all custom

made and, therefore, too expensive for wide

distribution, it still reached a large audience through

exhibitions and publications (plate 31.7). He

displayed a whole room of skyscraper furniture at

Macy’s 1927 Art-in-Trade exhibition as well as at the

American Designers’ Gallery exhibition in 1928.

Good Furniture was only one of many journals that

wrote admiringly of the skyscraper line, declaring it

was ‘as American and as New Yorkish as Fifth

Avenue itself’.21 The skyscraper was depicted in

every possible medium – ceramics, metalwork,

textiles, paintings, photographs and prints as well

as furniture.

31.6 Ilonka Karasz (born in Hungary), vase, bowl and

candlestick. Silver-plated metal. American, c.1928. Cooper-

Hewitt, National Design Museum, Smithsonian Institution.

31.5 Donald Deskey, table lamp. Chrome-plated metal and

glass. American, c.1927. Made by Deskey-Vollmer.

Collection John P. Axelrod, Boston, MA. Courtesy Museum

of Fine Arts, Boston.

31.7 Paul T. Frankl (born in Austria),

desk and bookcase. Walnut, paint

and brass handles. American,

c.1928. For Frankl Galleries, New

York City. Collection John P. Axelrod,

Boston, MA. Courtesy Museum of

Fine Arts, Boston.

‘ The Filter of American Taste’: Design in the USA in the 1920s

357

New Materials and Technologies

356

The Deco World

outboard motor designed by John R. Morgan, an in-

house designer at Sears, Roebuck (plate 33.10).

Although the typical weekend fisherman probably did

not consult style trends when purchasing a motor for

his boat, Morgan created an object later praised by

the art historian Richard Guy Wilson as a piece of

‘machine age sculpture’.16 With a semi-circular

engine housing flanked by two teardrop fuel tanks, it

reminded later generations of the starship Enterprise

in Star Trek. In 1936, however, it brought boating

some of the glamour of modern transportation.

Although many American Art Deco products of the

1930s, from irons to refrigerators, made reference

to recognizable formal analogues, other objects

fabricated from aluminium relied for their attractive-

ness almost entirely on the surface qualities of their

material. Noteworthy in this regard was the RCA

Victor Special, a portable phonograph designed by

John Vassos (plate 33.12). This high-style variation

on the old fashioned hand-wound record player came

mounted for high-impact resistance in a rectangular,

round-edged aluminium case. Devoid of direct visual

references to streamlined vehicles or other machine-

age icons, the Special’s every detail evoked

modernity, especially the mirror inside the lid that,

when open, enabled an operator to gauge visually

how much playing time remained on a record. An

owner of a Special could take pride in possessing a

piece of equipment that looked as if it belonged on

the Graf Zeppelin airship (see plate 29.11).

Even more dependent on the material itself for

aesthetic effect were the pitchers, urns, cocktail

shakers and other aluminium serving pieces spun by

Russel Wright on his own lathe in the late 1920s and

early 1930s (plate 33.11). Starting from thin,

lightweight tubes of metal, the young artisan

transformed the era’s most high-tech material into

objects whose delicacy belied the aura of the

machine shop they retained. Although Wright

rendered these pieces vaguely organic by stretching

their forms and supplying them with wooden handles,

such effects drew attention by contrast to the surface

of the material itself, a muted silver-grey but

enriched by finely brushed horizontal lines. As

American designers adapted the luxurious motifs of

Paris 1925 for a middle-class market, they retained

Art Deco’s central emphasis on decorative effects.

However, economic constraints forced them to do

more with less, to stylize mercilessly, to suggest

rather than to execute, and finally to rely on

innovative surface effects achieved with such new

materials as aluminium, stainless steel, chrome

plating and synthetic plastics, all of which depended

on new technologies. The inherent tension between

33.10 John R. Morgan, Waterwitch

outboard motor. Steel, aluminium

and rubber. American, 1936.

Made by Sears, Roebuck & Co.

Gift of John C. Waddell, 1998.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art,

New York.

33.12 John Vassos (born in Romania),

portable phonograph, model RCA Victor

Special. Aluminium, chrome plated steel,

plastic and velvet. American, c.1937.

Made by RCA. V&A: W.1-1997.

33.11 Russel Wright, spherical

vase, planter and cocktail shaker.

Spun aluminium and cork.

American, c.1932. John C. Waddell

private collection. Promised gift

to the Metropolitan Museum of

Art, New York. The Metropolitan

Museum of Art, New York.

357

New Materials and Technologies

356

The Deco World

outboard motor designed by John R. Morgan, an in-

house designer at Sears, Roebuck (plate 33.10).

Although the typical weekend fisherman probably did

not consult style trends when purchasing a motor for

his boat, Morgan created an object later praised by

the art historian Richard Guy Wilson as a piece of

‘machine age sculpture’.16 With a semi-circular

engine housing flanked by two teardrop fuel tanks, it

reminded later generations of the starship Enterprise

in Star Trek. In 1936, however, it brought boating

some of the glamour of modern transportation.

Although many American Art Deco products of the

1930s, from irons to refrigerators, made reference

to recognizable formal analogues, other objects

fabricated from aluminium relied for their attractive-

ness almost entirely on the surface qualities of their

material. Noteworthy in this regard was the RCA

Victor Special, a portable phonograph designed by

John Vassos (plate 33.12). This high-style variation

on the old fashioned hand-wound record player came

mounted for high-impact resistance in a rectangular,

round-edged aluminium case. Devoid of direct visual

references to streamlined vehicles or other machine-

age icons, the Special’s every detail evoked

modernity, especially the mirror inside the lid that,

when open, enabled an operator to gauge visually

how much playing time remained on a record. An

owner of a Special could take pride in possessing a

piece of equipment that looked as if it belonged on

the Graf Zeppelin airship (see plate 29.11).

Even more dependent on the material itself for

aesthetic effect were the pitchers, urns, cocktail

shakers and other aluminium serving pieces spun by

Russel Wright on his own lathe in the late 1920s and

early 1930s (plate 33.11). Starting from thin,

lightweight tubes of metal, the young artisan

transformed the era’s most high-tech material into

objects whose delicacy belied the aura of the

machine shop they retained. Although Wright

rendered these pieces vaguely organic by stretching

their forms and supplying them with wooden handles,

such effects drew attention by contrast to the surface

of the material itself, a muted silver-grey but

enriched by finely brushed horizontal lines. As

American designers adapted the luxurious motifs of

Paris 1925 for a middle-class market, they retained

Art Deco’s central emphasis on decorative effects.

However, economic constraints forced them to do

more with less, to stylize mercilessly, to suggest

rather than to execute, and finally to rely on

innovative surface effects achieved with such new

materials as aluminium, stainless steel, chrome

plating and synthetic plastics, all of which depended

on new technologies. The inherent tension between

33.10 John R. Morgan, Waterwitch

outboard motor. Steel, aluminium

and rubber. American, 1936.

Made by Sears, Roebuck & Co.

Gift of John C. Waddell, 1998.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art,

New York.

33.12 John Vassos (born in Romania),

portable phonograph, model RCA Victor

Special. Aluminium, chrome plated steel,

plastic and velvet. American, c.1937.

Made by RCA. V&A: W.1-1997.

33.11 Russel Wright, spherical

vase, planter and cocktail shaker.

Spun aluminium and cork.

American, c.1932. John C. Waddell

private collection. Promised gift

to the Metropolitan Museum of

Art, New York. The Metropolitan

Museum of Art, New York.

410

The Deco World

The Anzac Memorial appears to be made of stone

but is largely of reinforced concrete. The possibilities

opened up by new materials and technologies were

welcomed by Dellit, who advocated that architects

should exploit them: ‘Modernity has produced such

wonderful materials and methods ... glass, electric

light, synthetic materials, highly finished materials,

structural steel, reinforced concrete, terra cotta –

each with possibilities unknown to the ancients –

mechanical inventions and mass production.’8 Many

of the materials to which Dellit referred, such as

chromed steel, granite and terracotta, were ones

that possessed – or could be given – the surface

brilliance so characteristic of Art Deco.

Architectural terracotta, introduced in Australia

during the 1920s, was used extensively as a

decorative material, often to cover entire façades of

buildings. In Goulburn, New South Wales, famous

for its fine wool, Wunderlich Ltd, tile manufacturers,

in conjunction with the architect L. P. Burns, rose to

Dellit’s challenge and produced a rich polychrome

ornamental façade for Elmslea Chambers (1933);

neo-classical pilasters surround a design based on

a ram’s head (plate 38.5). Ernest Wunderlich had

visited the Paris 1925 Exhibition and recorded:

It is a pleasure show like all French Exhibitions ... full

of novel conceits and, but for the modern sculpture,

which is uniformly vile, pleasing and striking. In

furniture and interior decoration, especially in lighting

effects, many ideas could be picked up. Even when

the designs are outré they are always artistic and

possess a cachet of their own ... and the palais des

marbres et mosaïques is gorgeous.9

The firm’s subsequent work and their showroom

were much influenced by what Ernest Wunderlich had

seen at the exhibition. In addition to architectural

terracotta, used to clad and ornament several

buildings, Wunderlich promoted Art Deco designs in

their decorative pressed metal ceilings.

Napier Waller and his wife, Christian, were the

most important Australian artists in stained glass

during the 1920s and 1930s. Both worked in other

media including printmaking; Napier was also a

painter. They had been exposed to contemporary

ideas about stained-glass design while studying at

Whall & Whall in London in 1929 and were strongly

influenced by contemporary international design

tendencies more generally. After their return to

Australia in 1930, there was a pronounced change in

Christian’s style. Her graphic work – prints, illustrated

books and bookplates – with its emphatic geometry

and often elongated forms, was strongly influenced

by Art Deco. Her remarkable group of illustrations for

the book The Great Breath (1932) are based on

theosophical thought and, like many Art Deco

designs, also drew on ancient Greek and Egyptian art

(plate 38.6). Similarly, the Wallers’ stained glass

shows the same preoccupation with geometric form,

apparent in the leading as much as in the figure and

decorative work. Napier Waller’s most pronounced

statement in the style was the Leckie window for

Wilson Hall in the University of Melbourne (1935).10

Its complex design draws on Greek mythology and

biblical images to illustrate the Creation and the

evolution of European culture (plate 38.7).

38.6 Christian Waller, The Spirit of

Light. Linocut. Australian, 1932.

Plate 1 of The Great Breath,

Melbourne, 1932. National Gallery of

Victoria, Melbourne.

38.7 Napier Waller, detail from

Ceres, Leckie Window, University of

Melbourne. Stained glass and lead.

Australian, 1935. University of

Melbourne Art Collection. Gift of

John E. Leckie.

38.5 L. P. Burns, terracotta

decoration on Elmslea Chambers,

Goulburn, New South Wales.

Australian, 1933. Made by

Wunderlich Ltd.

Photo: Patrick Van Daele.

410

The Deco World

The Anzac Memorial appears to be made of stone

but is largely of reinforced concrete. The possibilities

opened up by new materials and technologies were

welcomed by Dellit, who advocated that architects

should exploit them: ‘Modernity has produced such

wonderful materials and methods ... glass, electric

light, synthetic materials, highly finished materials,

structural steel, reinforced concrete, terra cotta –

each with possibilities unknown to the ancients –

mechanical inventions and mass production.’8 Many

of the materials to which Dellit referred, such as

chromed steel, granite and terracotta, were ones

that possessed – or could be given – the surface

brilliance so characteristic of Art Deco.

Architectural terracotta, introduced in Australia

during the 1920s, was used extensively as a

decorative material, often to cover entire façades of

buildings. In Goulburn, New South Wales, famous

for its fine wool, Wunderlich Ltd, tile manufacturers,

in conjunction with the architect L. P. Burns, rose to

Dellit’s challenge and produced a rich polychrome

ornamental façade for Elmslea Chambers (1933);

neo-classical pilasters surround a design based on

a ram’s head (plate 38.5). Ernest Wunderlich had

visited the Paris 1925 Exhibition and recorded:

It is a pleasure show like all French Exhibitions ... full

of novel conceits and, but for the modern sculpture,

which is uniformly vile, pleasing and striking. In

furniture and interior decoration, especially in lighting

effects, many ideas could be picked up. Even when

the designs are outré they are always artistic and

possess a cachet of their own ... and the palais des

marbres et mosaïques is gorgeous.9

The firm’s subsequent work and their showroom

were much influenced by what Ernest Wunderlich had

seen at the exhibition. In addition to architectural

terracotta, used to clad and ornament several

buildings, Wunderlich promoted Art Deco designs in

their decorative pressed metal ceilings.

Napier Waller and his wife, Christian, were the

most important Australian artists in stained glass

during the 1920s and 1930s. Both worked in other

media including printmaking; Napier was also a

painter. They had been exposed to contemporary

ideas about stained-glass design while studying at

Whall & Whall in London in 1929 and were strongly

influenced by contemporary international design

tendencies more generally. After their return to

Australia in 1930, there was a pronounced change in

Christian’s style. Her graphic work – prints, illustrated

books and bookplates – with its emphatic geometry

and often elongated forms, was strongly influenced

by Art Deco. Her remarkable group of illustrations for

the book The Great Breath (1932) are based on

theosophical thought and, like many Art Deco

designs, also drew on ancient Greek and Egyptian art

(plate 38.6). Similarly, the Wallers’ stained glass

shows the same preoccupation with geometric form,

apparent in the leading as much as in the figure and

decorative work. Napier Waller’s most pronounced

statement in the style was the Leckie window for

Wilson Hall in the University of Melbourne (1935).10

Its complex design draws on Greek mythology and

biblical images to illustrate the Creation and the

evolution of European culture (plate 38.7).

38.6 Christian Waller, The Spirit of

Light. Linocut. Australian, 1932.

Plate 1 of The Great Breath,

Melbourne, 1932. National Gallery of

Victoria, Melbourne.

38.7 Napier Waller, detail from

Ceres, Leckie Window, University of

Melbourne. Stained glass and lead.

Australian, 1935. University of

Melbourne Art Collection. Gift of

John E. Leckie.

38.5 L. P. Burns, terracotta

decoration on Elmslea Chambers,

Goulburn, New South Wales.

Australian, 1933. Made by

Wunderlich Ltd.

Photo: Patrick Van Daele.