Movements

Art Deco

Also Known As Style Moderne

Citation Formats

General Reference

Arts and Music Atlas. "Art Deco." Accessed August 30, 2026. https://arts.interactiveatlas.org/movements/art-deco.

APA Style

Arts and Music Atlas. (n.d.). Art Deco. Retrieved August 30, 2026, from https://arts.interactiveatlas.org/movements/art-deco

BibTeX

@misc{artsandmusicatlas-art-deco,
  author = {Arts and Music Atlas},
  title = {Art Deco},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://arts.interactiveatlas.org/movements/art-deco},
  note = {Accessed August 30, 2026}
}

Art Deco was a decorative and architectural style that flourished internationally from the 1920s through the 1930s, marked by bold geometric ornament, streamlined forms, and lavish use of materials such as chrome, lacquer and inlaid wood. It took its name retrospectively from the 1925 Paris Exposition Internationale des Arts Decoratifs et Industriels Modernes, and it left some of the twentieth century's most recognizable skyscrapers, among them New York's Chrysler Building and Empire State Building.

Facts

Start Year

1925 1

Founded In Place

Paris, France, taking its retrospective name from the 1925 Exposition Internationale des Arts Decoratifs et Industriels Modernes 1

Key Principle

Bold geometric ornament and streamlined forms rendered in lavish materials, applied across architecture and the decorative arts alike 1

Disputed

End Year

1939 1

Art Deco's roots reach back before the First World War and its influence continued in places after 1939, but the outbreak of the Second World War is the point most historians cite for the close of its main international period.

Cross-Tradition Connections