Alastair Duncan

The most comprehensive account of the decorative arts of the Art Deco period ever assembled. Straddling two World Wars and the Great Depression, ushering in the Jazz Age and the era of the automobile and skyscraper, fomenting in the great cities of Europe and America and shaping everything from the Golden Gate Bridge to the humble desk lamp, the story of Art Deco is the story of our modern world. In this book, the most comprehensive account of the decorative arts of the Art Deco period ever assembled, Alastair Duncan celebrates the style’s rich variety of form and its diverse international roots as the very factors that make it a perennial favourite of modern collectors and designers. Sumptuously illustrated and written by one of the world’s leading experts, Art Deco Complete is the definitive work on the subject.

This grand opus assembles the people and the pieces at the heart of the Art Deco movement at each stage of its enduring appeal. The Art Deco Style is richly illustrated with the work of legendary designers and decorators Eileen Gray, Paul Iribe, Antoine Bourdelle, Armand-Albert Rateau and Jean Dunand, among others. Ever since its early 20th-century origins, Art Deco has fascinated and amused socialites, collectors and designers. Referred to at the time as moderne, the style largely took shape around a clientele of French fashion industry luminaries and wealthy international collectors. Art historians christened it during a second wave in the ’60s, while a third generation of afficionados entered the auction houses of the ’80s and ’90s, ready to invest in the most exquisite examples. Curated by art consultant and author Alastair Duncan, this detailed historical account is the gold-standard visual guide to the decorative arts.

This book showcases and puts into historical context a host of sculpted works created in the 1920s and 1930s in the decorative vernacular defined loosely today as `Art Deco’. Whether designed as free-standing statuary for the domestic market or commissioned for some form of architectural placement, as a frieze on a building’s façade or as a public monument or pool fountain, the works shown demonstrate a sometimes bewilderingly broad range of styles and stylistic influences: from the chevrons, sunbursts, maidens, fountains, floral abstractions and ubiquitous biche (doe) of the Parisian geometric style to the crisp, angular patterns of the zig-zag, jazz-age, streamlined aesthetic of the 1930s. Alastair Duncan organizes his subject into three main categories: the first features work by avant-garde sculptors (Csaky, Janniot, Pompon, etc), often as pièces uniques or small editions; the second shows commercial sculpture, comprising mainly large-edition statuary, commissioned as decorative works for the burgeoning 1920s domestic market; while a final, third category covers architectural and monumental sculpture from West and Eastern Europe, Scandinavia, North America, Brazil and beyond. With artists’ biographies and details of manufacturers, a full glossary and a thematic index, this volume is the essential and authoritative guide for all those interested in the Art Deco style, from the amateur collector of animalier sculpture to professional historians of the period.

Although renowned for his work as a verrier, lamps did not form a significant part of Gallé's repertoire in glass until immediately prior to 1900. Indeed, only in the last few years of his life does it appear that he realised the full aesthetic potential of opalescent glass viewed by transmitted light. In an Art Nouveau context, Gallé's creations reached their apogee between 1900 and his death in 1904, a brief period during which he adapted the shape of much of his glassware to its theme. Vases decorated with lilies became lily-shaped in a marriage of form and function. Fully-ripened gourds pendent on their vines glowed from within at the touch of a switch. Mushroom lamps brought the concept to full embodiment in the metamorphosis of the giant fungi into light fixtures. This comprehensive volume catalogues the full range of light fixtures produced by the Gallé cristallerie, from those made during his lifetime to those manufactured for more than twenty-five years after his death. Including table, bedside, hanging and wall models, Gallé Lamps reveals the extraordinary variety of thematic shade-and-base combinations introduced by the firm: butterflies, moths, dragonflies, swallows and eagles hover, flutter, glide or swoop over flora and mountain vistas in a seemingly endless interplay of Nature's decorative motifs. This volume is a companion to Gallé Furniture ISBN 9781851496624. "It amazes me that such a high standard can be maintained for what is, given that quality, a modest price. Galle Furniture will appeal to libraries covering furniture, design and cultural studies" Reference Reviews

Emille Gallé was one of the great names of the Art Nouveau movement in France, and founder of the famous École de Nancy. A polymath and committed social activist, he was best known for his glasswork and faience. Furniture became his third discipline after experimenting with the manufacture of wooden bases on which he could mount his glass vases. Following the French tradition of furniture decoration known as marqueterie, his work is characterised by its meticulous decorative veneers, stained with subtle organic dyes; and panels inlaid with stunningly intricate country scenes and flowers. This important book outlines all of Galle's major works of furniture, from the pieces uniques that were designed for an exclusive clientele, to those displayed between 1889 and 1904 at the annual Paris Salons and two World Expositions. The recent emergence of many of his objets de luxe enables the reader to understand many of his pieces for the first time. Written by Decorative Arts specialist Alastair Duncan, Gallé Furniture documents the history of Gallé's furniture production from his favourite motifs to the ways in which he used furniture design to express his social and political ideals. Duncan includes an encyclopedic range of models created in the Gallé Workshops both during and after his lifetime. Beautifully illustrated, and containing translations of Gallé's 'Notes to the Juries' of the World Expositions, this stunning publication will leave the reader captivated by this remarkable expression of the new art that changed the European aesthetic forever. Forthcoming: Gallé Lamps ISBN: 9781851496716

This beautiful, gift-ready oversize volume is the definitive last word in Art Deco, the most glamorous decorative arts style. This 544-page book includes more than 1,000 color images of classic Art Deco objects and spaces. Its author is the colorful and experienced Alastair Duncan, who was for many years the expert who ran the 20th-century decorative arts department at Christie's in New York. It includes the work of all of the important Art Deco designers, from high-style French furniture makers to the creators of the popular "Streamline Moderne" style. And it is, in the spirit of Art Deco, a lavish and attractive book, as well as authoritative and thorough. This gorgeous coffee table book stands as a unique monument to Art Deco, one that every graphic designer, architect, interior designer, artist, and jeweler will want to own, display, and refer to again and again. Opinions vary as to what constitutes the best of Art Deco, whether it was the highly colorful and playful geometric style which ruled the Paris Salons in the immediate post-WWI years--the chevrons, arcs, sunbursts, maidens, fountains, floral abstractions, and ubiquitous biche (doe)--or that of the crisp angular patterns of the American modernistic impulses--including zig-zag, jazz-age, machine-age, and streamlined aesthetics, to which architects were drawn toward in the 1930s and to which its supporters believe the Deco label most appropriately applies. In the end, the argument does not matter, only the timeless designs do. Here you will find: Furniture and interior decorationSculpturePaintings, graphics, posters BookbindingGlass and ceramicsTextilesMetal workJewelryAnd much more

Offers an account of the decorative arts of the Art Deco period. This book celebrates the styles rich variety of form and its diverse international roots as the very factors that make it a perennial favourite of modern collectors and designers.

The catalogues of the Paris Salons at the turn of the 19th to the 20th century provide a unique archive of illustrations of the decorative arts at a pivotal time in their development, the five previous volumes covering Jewellery, Furniture, Ceramics and Glass, and Objets d'Art. The fabric designers of the Art Nouveau style who exhibited at the Paris Salons produced a remarkable oeuvre in printed and woven fabric, silk, lace, embroidery and tapestry. Bookbinding was, and still is, a well-established French tradition, and bibliophiles commissioned unique bindings from artist-designers who, at the same time, were also creating and exhibiting non-bound leather goods - handbags, blotters, upholstery. This volume is probably the most important in the series. Because of wear and tear, practically none of the approximate 1,200 textile and leatherware pieces illustrated have survived outside museum collections or appeared at auction, unlike the items covered by the earlier volumes.

Alastair Duncan tells the story of the meteoric rise and fall of Art Nouveau, which began as a general reaction by young artists and designers to the stifling traditionalism and revivalism of the mid-nineteenth-century fine and decorative arts. The 'new art' first made itself felt around 1895, in architecture, furniture, glass, ceramics and the other applied arts, and fell into eclipse after World War I, until its rediscovery in the 1960s. The author recounts the history of this important movement in detail, introducing the main personalities - Mucha, Lalique, Tiffany and others - and relating their aims and accomplishments to the background from which the movement emerged.

Art Deco is one of the most exciting chapters in the history of the decorative arts. Conceived in France before the First World War, it spread throughout Europe and had its greatest and most spectacular success in the United States. Myriad influences shaped the style – Cubism, Constructivism, Orientalism, the Ballets Russes, the Bauhaus – and its exponents included many of the century’s most celebrated artists, designers and craftsmen.