Art Deco Complete: The Definitive Guide to the Decorative Arts of the 1920s and 1930s

Description

The Art Deco style of the early 1930s can be seen as domesticated Cubism. As with cubist paintings, the elements of design were reduced to their minimal essence and applied to everyday items for public consumption. Here Bakelite plastic jewellery and boxes are studied as reflections of this style. The book is a visual garden of Deco design, with hundreds of items photographed in colour and described with their useful purposes, materials, and current values. Bakelite is collected because it is different and fun. This book is important because it demonstrates how the new Art Deco style provided the Depression-ridden world with colour and style in a form most people could afford.

Alastair Duncan is the author of Art Deco Complete, American Art Deco, Art Deco and Art Deco Furniture, all published by Thames & Hudson.

'A sumptuous work' - House & Garden 'The sheer sumptuousness of the images will surely appeal to those specialists, collectors and the general public who fuel the constant stream of glossy new Art Deco titles' - Art Quarterly 'Alastair Duncan has put what seems like every art deco object ever made inside this book ... A serious A - Z section on 500 designers makes the work definitive' - Sunday Telegraph