Fun Furniture Fact # 16: Art Deco
The term art deco derives from the 1925 Exposition Internationale des Arts Decoratifs Industriels et Modernes, held in Paris. The show was organized by an association of French artists known as, La Societe des Artistes Decorateurs (society of decorator artists). – visual-arts-cork.com
This winter the Furnish Green showroom has been lush with some truly arresting Art Deco pieces. Naturally, the pieces populating our shop have propelled us to ponder some prevalent aspects of the Deco movement.
After its introduction in 1925 the Art Deco movement quickly rose to international prominence in a multitude of design mediums ranging from architecture to jewelry.
In regards to furniture, the Deco style features distinguishing characteristics that include the lines and shapes, wood inlays and veneer styles, and the hardware.
Art Deco hardware design is a consistently dazzling detail. The variety of hardware designs for simple drawer pulls is remarkable. They range from minimal and industrial to lavishly ornate, but are unified by being based on this or that simple shape, thus meshing with the simple overall shape of the whole piece. This simplicity of shape serves as a stark contrast to the Art Nouveau movement which Deco succeeded. Hardware was made from newly available materials of the time including aluminum, stainless steel and often bakelite (an early form of plastic).
Much of the beauty of Art Deco furniture emanates from the wood itself. Many pieces feature veneers of burled wood grain or crotch walnut grain detail. These veneer types offer a more organic array of lines and shapes then the traditional hard parallel lines found in most wood grains. These ethereal shapes play against the hard angles and basic shapes that comprise the overall piece. Combined with the movement’s penchant for applying veneers symmetrically, the result is a mesmerizing Rorshach-like set of abstract reflections that one can get lost in (should it be one’s druthers).
Our favorite Art Deco piece that resides in the showroom today is this amazing vanity with a full length mirror, an unexpected series of drawers in which shapes and sizes are determined by the uniquely asymmetrical cascading shape of the overall piece, and lastly but not leastly, THE ULTIMATE: a cute yet saucy built-in lamp!
This vanity displays some classic Deco cut-out details on both the mirror frame and body of the piece (as shown above).
By the 1940s the movement started to fade, as it was deemed too ostentatious for wartime aesthetics.
One last note: during its heyday, the term Art Deco was seldom used. It wasn’t until 1968 when Bevis Hillier’s book Art Deco of the 20s and 30s that the term ‘Art Deco’ became commonly used.
Check out our entire Art Deco collection here.