50 Fun Facts About Art Deco

Art Deco takes its name from which 1925 event?

'Arts decoratifs' was shortened to Art Deco; the term itself was not printed until 1966.

In which city did Art Deco first appear, in the 1910s just before the First World War?

It flourished internationally through the 1920s and early 1930s.

Which historian's 1968 book Art Deco of the 20s and 30s established the term as a stylistic label?

He organised a landmark exhibition at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts in 1971.

Art Deco's bold geometry has its origins in Cubism and which Austrian movement?

Josef Hoffmann's Stoclet Palace in Brussels, with mosaics by Klimt, was a prototype of the style.

Which Russian dance company's colourful sets by Leon Bakst helped inspire Art Deco's palette?

The bright colours of Fauvism and the fashions of Paul Poiret were the other early influences.

The discovery of which pharaoh's tomb fed the ancient-Egyptian motifs of 1920s Art Deco?

Designers also borrowed from the Maya, Persia, China, Japan and India.

Which 1913 Paris venue by Auguste Perret is regarded as the first landmark Art Deco building?

A critic sneered at it as the 'Zeppelin of Avenue Montaigne'; a young Le Corbusier had been a draftsman in Perret's office.

Which country was not invited to the 1925 Paris exposition because of its role in the First World War?

The Soviet Union was invited despite France not yet recognising its government.

Why did the United States decline to take part in the 1925 exposition?

Herbert Hoover's excuse did not stop hundreds of American designers and buyers from visiting.

Which architect's stark Pavillon de L'Esprit Nouveau at the 1925 exposition foreshadowed modernism?

He later wrote a series of articles denouncing the luxurious arts decoratifs style, and modernism eventually won out.

Which Alsatian furniture designer starred at the 1925 exposition, refusing mass production and using ebony and ivory?

His Hotel du Collectionneur pavilion drew crowds; even his firm turned to series production during the Depression.

Which city has the largest concentration of Art Deco architecture in the world?

Its historic district, designated in 1979, holds 960 buildings, mostly from the Depression to the early 1940s.

The Ocean Drive Art Deco district in Florida was the setting of which fashion designer's murder in 1997?

He was shot on the steps of his Ocean Drive mansion by Andrew Cunanan.

Which New Zealand city was rebuilt in Art Deco style after a 1931 earthquake levelled it?

It holds the Tremains Art Deco Weekend every February; the Hawke's Bay quake struck on 3 February 1931.

Which Indian city's Victorian and Art Deco ensemble was made a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2018?

Its Marine Drive apartment blocks and cinemas like the Regal and Eros face the Oval Maidan.

Who designed the Chrysler Building?

Walter Chrysler funded it personally as an investment for his children, not as a corporate HQ.

The Chrysler Building's 31st-floor ornaments are replicas of what?

Eagles adorn the 61st floor as a nod to America's national bird.

The Chrysler Building's crown was the first American use of which German-developed material?

Krupp's 18-8 alloy contains 18% chromium and 8% nickel.

How long did the Chrysler Building hold the title of world's tallest building?

It was also the world's first supertall skyscraper; the Empire State Building overtook it in 1931.

Who designed the interiors of Radio City Music Hall, mixing chrome, aluminium and Bakelite?

The 'Showplace of the Nation' opened on 27 December 1932 as part of Rockefeller Center.

Diego Rivera's 30 Rockefeller Plaza mural was destroyed for including a portrait of whom?

Man at the Crossroads was commissioned in 1932; Rivera had earlier painted Detroit Industry for Edsel Ford.

Which mythological figure is Paul Manship's gilded statue in Rockefeller Center's plaza?

Lee Lawrie's Atlas stands on Fifth Avenue; the Christmas tree first went up in December 1933.

Christ the Redeemer above Rio de Janeiro, the largest Art Deco sculpture, was made by which sculptor?

The reinforced concrete and soapstone figure, 30 metres tall, was built between 1922 and 1931 on Corcovado.

What was the sleeker 1930s offshoot of Art Deco, with curving forms and smooth surfaces, called?

In France it was the 'style paquebot', inspired by the ocean liner Normandie.

Which 1933 car was one of the first production vehicles in the Streamline style?

Streamlining stayed in car design well after the Second World War.

Which French ocean liner, launched in 1932, was the most famous floating example of Art Deco?

Its dining room was lit by twelve pillars of Lalique crystal.

Cassandre's celebrated 1935 poster depicted which French liner head-on?

He also designed the Yves Saint Laurent logo and the Peignot and Bifur typefaces.

Bakelite, the early plastic beloved of Art Deco designers, was invented in 1907 by whom?

Made in Yonkers, New York, it was the world's first commercial synthetic plastic.

Tamara de Lempicka's famous 1929 self-portrait shows her at the wheel of which car?

Painted for the cover of Die Dame, it was a fiction: she actually drove a small yellow Renault, which was stolen one night.

The Russian-born designer Erte took his pseudonym from what?

Romain de Tirtoff signed his first big contract with Harper's Bazaar in 1915.

Rene Lalique, whose crystal pillars lit the liner's dining room, also famously made what for cars?

He had begun as an Art Nouveau jeweller working with glass, horn and enamel.

Which designer's bright colours and exotic catalogues influenced Art Deco fashion before WWI?

Erte worked for him from 1913 to 1914.

The 1930s Hoover Building in Perivale was built as the UK factory for what product?

Wallis, Gilbert and Partners designed it, and it has since become apartments.

Eltham Palace pairs a medieval great hall with a 1930s Art Deco house built for which family?

Stephen and Virginia Courtauld's pet lemur, Mah-Jongg, had his own room with a hatch to the flower room.

Cincinnati Union Terminal, an Art Deco station of 1933, has the Western Hemisphere's largest what?

The rotunda's half-dome is 180 feet wide; Winold Reiss's industrial mosaics decorate it.

Which two Paris buildings from the 1937 exposition were among the last Art Deco landmarks built in the city?

Auguste Perret's Museum of Public Works was the other late example.

What replaced Art Deco as the dominant architectural approach after the Second World War?

Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe led the functional, unadorned modernism that took over.

Which American designer created a chrome-plated cocktail set shaped like a skyscraper?

He was one of the industrial designers who gave the 1930s its streamlined look.

Which Paris jewellers joined Cartier's 1920s turn from diamonds to colourful cut gemstones?

Cartier and Boucheron shaped stones into leaves, fruit and flowers for brooches and clips.

What was the androgynous 1920s Art Deco female silhouette, topped by a cloche hat, known as?

It flattened the bosom, dropped the waist and revealed the legs.

Which British artist carved the Art Deco statuary for BBC Broadcasting House?

Ronald Atkinson decorated the lobby of the Daily Express Building in Fleet Street.

The term 'Art deco' first appeared in print in the title of a 1966 exhibition held where?

The show, Les Annees 25, covered a range of 1920s and 1930s styles including Bauhaus and De Stijl.

In architecture, Art Deco succeeded and reacted against which earlier style?

That predecessor flourished in Europe between 1895 and 1900, all curves and organic lines where Deco went geometric.

Which New Deal agency's Federal Art Project hired jobless artists to decorate public buildings?

Sculptor Sidney Biehler Waugh was among those commissioned to produce stylised images of workers for federal buildings.

Chicago's Neo Art Deco NBC Tower was inspired by which New York landmark?

Twenty-first-century revivals of the style also include the Smith Center for the Performing Arts in Las Vegas.

What is the French name for the ocean-liner strand of Art Deco exemplified by the SS Normandie?

The liner's 1935 maiden voyage was designed to ferry wealthy Americans to Paris to shop.

Josef Hoffmann's Stoclet Palace, a prototype of the Art Deco style, stands in which city?

Built from 1905 to 1911, it combined geometric volumes, marble-clad concrete and finely sculpted ornament.

Jules Leleu designed the dining-room furniture for which official Paris residence?

He favoured ebony, Macassar wood and walnut, decorated with plaques of ivory and mother-of-pearl.

The Art Deco glassmaking firm Daum was based in which French city?

Rival glass designers of the period included Marius-Ernest Sabino, known for opalescent glass that shifted from white to blue to amber.

Which Romanian-born sculptor was famed for colourful small Art Deco figures of dancers?

He was one of the best-known 'salon sculptors', alongside Preiss, Lorenzl and Alexander Kelety.