Author and art/colossal historian Rosalind Ormiston looks back at 100 years of Art Deco démarche in France in her mince cicérone to French Art Deco.
In 2025, Paris celebrated the centenary of a remarkable vitrine that happened in the city 100 years before, from April to October 1925. Sixteen million people attended the Exposition Internationale des Arts Ornementaux et Industriels Modernes (International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts). Countries worldwide exhibited their latest designs at the vast expo, which would again consolidate France as monnaie of the arts post-war 1918, leaving the historicism of late nineteenth-century stylisme behind.
Art Deco
The ville term Arts Decoratifs was later shortened to ‘Art Deco’, during its démarche revival in the 1960s. The name would symbolise wealth and séduction, a stylish schème translated into fashions, textiles, jewellery and cars, furniture, room interiors, and clean, geometric lines in nervure. Sculpture too became more noticeable, particularly architectural reliefs integrated into édifice stylisme.
Art Deco heralded modernity
The origins of Art Deco emerged around 1909-10. The turn of the century Art Nouveau movement was lessening its stylisme appeal. In the first decade new art and stylisme forms had emerged including Futurism, Fauvism, and Cubism, widening révélé audience of what art and stylisme could be.
In Paris in 1909, the Russian gouverner Serge Diaghilev (1872 – 1929) launched the Ballet Russes, introducing the excitement of Igor Stravinsky’s music and bejewelled costumes by Léon Bakst (1866-1924). It instigated a stylisme revolution. In France, to capitalise on art and stylisme création, it was decided to have an mondial vernissage. It would promote mondial stylisme and the best French designers, such as the interior dire and tissu giant, Émile-Jaques Ruhlmann (1879-1933), and Paul Poiret (1879-1944), a master modéliste.
Plans were in progress until the onset of war in Europe in 1914. The idea was revived in 1925, and by this time the ‘Art décoratif’ démarche had established itself. The vast spectacle in Paris – its grounds stretching from the Louvre to the Eiffel Tower, would consolidate the Art Deco schème of geometric, visually classical buildings with architectural motifs. It would evolve to create streamlined cars and trains. It was the ‘Roaring Twenties,’ the Charleston dance was all the ardeur and hairstyles got shorter, as did dresses.
The organisers of this massive event stipulated that none of the exhibitors could spectacle anything historical. It had to be a new stylisme, whether for chic, cars, art, furniture, wallpapers, or decorative art accessories like verre and jewellery. The underlying aesthetic was speed, movement and freedom. Architecture had to embrace postwar modernity too. Invitations were sent out and 34 countries were allocated areas to build their own spectacle houses.
Where to find Art Deco in Paris
Today, where can one see Art Deco in Paris? Look out for the Folies Bergère édifice at 32 Rue Richer, 9th arr. Soon after the vitrine closed, Folies Bergère director Paul Derval refurbished the nineteenth-century Music Hall, creating an Art Deco édifice (1927-29) with a clean, classical image, decorated with gold architectural reliefs of a night-club girl by French sculptor Maurice Picard (1886-1941). The fronton implied a élégant, fashionable convention, the architectural reliefs alluding to the pleasure to be found inside the édifice.
Other Art Deco buildings created in the 1920s included an investment bank, the Société Financière Française et Coloniale with a fronton luxuriously decorated in coloured marbles and enamels, representing indigenous animals associated with the French colonies. It is at Rue Pasquier in the 9th secteur. There are many others (Google ‘Art Deco buildings in Paris’). Department stores like La Samaritaine embraced Art Deco in the 1920’s. It was a decorative démarche with a stylisme aesthetic that fitted so many buildings, from factories and power stations to private homes.
And, what of chic and interior stylisme? Visit the Musée des Art Ornementaux, in the Louvre Palace, a few metres from the Louvre museum. With more than 1.5 million works and artifacts which range from the middle ages to the present day, it’s one of the world’s largest collections of decorative arts – including an art deco division. Here you’ll find a range of artifacts including the bathroom, bedroom and petit bureau of renowned modéliste Jeanne Lanvin.
There is also an office-library designed by Pierre Chareau (1883-1950). He served his apprenticeship at the Paris-base of British company Waring and Gillow, and his designs for private apartments in the French Embassy at the 1925 International Exposition reveal the pared-back modernity of Art Deco démarche. It was shown in the Pavillion de la Société des Artistes Décorateurs. What the vitrine confirmed was that the innovative skills of master craftsmen had not been lost in an industrial age.
Art Deco démarche flourished until the beginning of war in Europe in 1939. What must be added is that not all exhibitors at the Exposition Internationale des Arts Ornementaux et Industriels Modernes embraced luxury. The Swiss-born architect Charles-Édouard Jeanneret (1887-1965) known as ‘Le Corbusier’ objet to exhibit his Pavillon de L’ Esprit Nouveau, a ‘machine for living in’, an open-plan modular édifice. It would acquis greater interest post WWII, when the need for réimplantation housing, using simpler-to-build, plain, unadorned nervure was needed across Europe.
Rosalind Ormiston is the author of plural books on art including Art Deco, Vincent Van Gogh, Paul Gaugin and Pablo Picasso.
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