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1925 EXPOSITION:

Art Deco on the World Stage

The Hôtel d’un Collectionneur was a highlight not just of
the Exposition, but of French Art Deco in its entirety.
By Maxine Carter-Lome, publisher Designed by Pierre Patout, this pavilion was created for
the furniture manufacturer Émile-Jacques Ruhlmann.

he Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels laid out for display submissions. The stipulation that ultimately
Modernes (International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and disqualified American participation was that no design could be based
TIndustrial Arts)—the Paris Exposition of 1925—opened its on historical styles – everything was required to be exclusively modern.
doors to the world on April 28th, creating massive interest in the fair’s It is said that the U.S. Secretary of Commerce at the time, Herbert
Style Moderne theme as presented in Hoover, explained that there was no
the architecture of the fair’s pavilions, modern art in the United States.
and the more modern design interpre- Regardless, hundreds of American
tations they displayed and promoted designers, artists, journalists, and
for everything from fashion to jewelry department store buyers came to Paris
and home goods. to see the Exposition. These visitors
The fair, a celebration of modern- were inspired by what they saw and
ism, was staged with the intent of propelled an Art Deco awakening in
re-establishing France as the arbiter of American architecture, fashion, and
taste and fashion in the post-war era. It design in the coming years. This
looked to fuse the French Art Deco movement launched new companies,
aesthetic, already popular in France by influenced an era of newly envisioned,
1925, with the international avant- modern-looking consumer goods, and
garde movement in architectural saw the building of skyscrapers that
design and the decorative arts sweeping forever changed city skylines. In
through Europe, to present a unified hindsight, it was acknowledged that
European vision of the future to an the exclusion had more to do with a
international audience. Its message: Image of the main axis of the Exposition misunderstanding of the fair’s
from the Gateway of Honor across the
traditional form and design were the Pont Alexandre III to Les Invalides, 1925 guidelines than a lack of a Moderne,
past; modernism, in all its forms, was American artistic vision.
the future. The global influence of the fair on design and craftsmanship was
Fifteen-thousand exhibitors from twenty different countries unmistakable; however, it wasn’t until the late 1960s that the term “Art
participated in this post-war event; however, the fair was dominated Deco” was coined and retroactively applied to the Modernism
by French companies and artisans, and other mostly European movement taking place around the 1925 Exhibition. Today, the term
participating countries. is used to refer to an aesthetic and period of art between 1909 and 1939
The United States was notably absent from the fair supposedly due defined by the use of sleek geometric or stylized forms, heavy use of
to the fact that she lacked designers whose work met the requirements color, surface embellishment, and the use of man-made materials.

18 Journal of Antiques and Collectibles