Some musings about Art Deco.

I've been looking at Art Deco paintings recently.  Like others, no doubt, I've built up a library of various forms of art on my computer...all culled from the internet of course.  Looking through my Art Deco folder has left me wondering 'what is Art Deco'?  I'd fallen into the trap of thinking that a google image search for art deco paintings would produce only that style of painting. Another reason for revisiting this style is a recent revamp of my personal art gallery on POL.  I like Deco art and thought I'd done quite a few.  In fact I'd painted just nine pictures.  (Ten now, because I painted one the other day).  For somebody who's been drawing and painting for 70 odd years since adulthood, this is pathetic.  In my living room, there are seven of my paintings on the walls.  Five of them are in art deco style.  So I must REALLY like it.  From the tiniest section of all my pictures I've selected the most to hang on my walls.  Completely nuts. Art Deco followed the Great War of 1914-18.  Lives had changed, out with the old, in with the sleek new.  The name comes from a famous exhibition in Paris in 1925, that showcased the new decorative arts.  I realised my folder on this art included paintings by artists who were working in that period, not necessarily in Deco style.  So...what IS Art Deco? I now have very definite ideas on what constitutes art deco painting.  Any search for the same will throw up Tamara De Lempicka.  She's definitely Deco.  Here's my favourite of her work...Sleeping Woman (her daughter, I think)... ...I copied this, the full works, grid reference etc, but in watercolour not oils like the original. Another definite in the deco stakes is A.M. Cassandre whose posters produced in the 1930s SCREAM Art Deco, you can't fail to be familiar with his work even if you don't know his name.  Here's one of his iconic posters... Art Deco means other things to me as well...like this... ...a 1935 Auburn Boat-tail Speedster. And this...A Supermarine Seaplane (from which the Spitfire evolved)... It also means FLAPPER GIRLS, which women the world over threw away the corsets of yesteryear.  This is Louise Brooks... It means beautiful sculptures like this... Snazzy new clothing as in this Leyendecker illustration... Another illustration by McClelland Barclay... What it isn't is this fabulous painting by Dod Proctor... I'd thought it was deco because I'd read that somewhere.  In fact she was a member of the Newlyn group, and was working through the deco era, not one of it's proponents.  Not that it matters, if I had to tack an art style to this work I'd say it was more Impressionist than deco. Art Deco is alive and well, people still like it, the work suits modern lifestyles.  And there are many contemporary artists producing deco style work.   Here's a couple... Mads Berg, an illustrator. Michael L Lungl, modern art deco artist. There are plenty more original deco artists, and many contemporary ones.  If anyone's interested, I'll continue.  Or maybe you have a favourite work from this era...perhaps by somebody I've never heard of.

Bill...I don't like ALL art deco paintings, but certainly enough to make me a fan.  I haven't copied much more than 10 paintings in my life, but three of them were by Tamara De Lempicka...and I certainly don't like all her paintings.  I know the lady in green very well, because that's one I tried to copy.  Many people have done the same, I think you've got a copy there Bill.   This is the Lempicka painting... I also like many paintings and posters from that era, although they aren't necessarily in the accepted Deco style...here's one...annoyingly the website didn't give the artist's name, it may be modern for all I know.  But I still like it, and see it as Deco Art...   I guess I just admire the style of cars, trains and planes from that era. Dixie, I'll think about that for your thread.  As I've said in response to Bill's post, I seldom like ALL of anyone's art whatever style they paint in.  Although I don't suppose  that matters, you can't like everything.

I wondered if it was Cuneo, I couldn't read the signature and no info was given.  He's an artist often grouped with the art deco era, I think he was around then.  I love his work.  I like the posters you've posted Peter, especially the ships. Here's a painting by a living artist whose work is firmly set in the Deco Style, mainly after A.M. Cassandre's work (above).  

Here's a couple of paintings from the deco era... first Jean Dupas. Another of Tamara de Lempicka's.  A portrait of her husband.  It's said they decided to divorce while she was painting this, that's why didn't didn't finish painting his left hand... Below some living artists who paint in Deco style... Catherine Abel. Helen Lamb.  To me she seems to mix a little Art Nouveau with her Deco. Ira Tsantekido. Peregrine Heathcote.  He paints this era because it's a time he would have liked to live in.