History

"The Musician", oil painting on canvas by Tamara de Lempicka, 1929.

After the Universal Exposition of 1900, various French artists formed an informal collective known as La Société des artistes décorateurs (the society of the decorator artists).^[7] Founders included Hector Guimard, Eugène Grasset, Raoul Lachenal, Paul Bellot, Maurice Dufrêne, and Emile Decoeur. These artists heavily influenced the principles of Art Deco as a whole.^[8]

This society's purpose was to demonstrate internationally the leading position and evolution of the French decorative arts. They organized the 1925^[9] Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes (International Exposition of Modern Industrial and Decorative Art) in Paris,^[10] which would feature French art and business interests.^[8][11] The terms style moderne and art deco both derive from the exposition's title,^[5] though art deco was not widely used until popularized by art historian Bevis Hillier's 1968 book Art Deco of the 20s and 30s.^[1]

In the summer of 1969, Hillier conceived organizing an exhibition called Art Deco at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts,^[12] which took place from July to September 1971. After this event, interest in Art Deco peaked with the publication of his 1971 book The World of Art Deco, a record of the exhibition