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American Art Deco |
By Alastair Duncan |
| Thames and Hudson, Inc, 500 Fifth Avenue, N.Y., 10110, pp 288, $34.95 paperback |
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American Art Deco
by Alastair Duncan
Thames and Hudson, Inc, 500 Fifth Avenue, N.Y., 10110, pp 288, $34.95 paperback.
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If you couldn't afford it in hard cover, Thames and Hudson has now released American Art Deco in paperback. The book covers the most important decorative style of the late 1920s and 30s and its influence in America, with chapters on architecture, sculpture, furniture, textiles, ceramics, silver, graphic arts and jewelry, lighting and clocks, silver and industrial design. It also focuses on artists such as Donald Deskey, Paul Manship, Walter von Nessen, Gilber Rohde, Russel Wright, and others.
Duncan, an independent consultant specializing in the decorative arts of the Nineteenth and Twentieth centuries, discusses the dramatic effect of the 1929 stock market crash on Art Deco design in the United States, one which created the new profession of the industrial designer to "restimulate" consumer buying in the 1930s. The American contribution of the skyscraper also cannot be ignored when discussing Art Deco history. But despite its part in this important movement, the author notes - surprisingly - that this country did not initially greet Modernism with enthusiasm.
Although it contains 502 illustrations (233 of them in color), this is not just a book full of pretty pictures. The pages of American Art Deco are chock full of information for eager fans of this movement.
- By Amy D'Orio
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