European immigrant designers and North American Art Deco

This chapter describes the work of immigrants in the decades leading up to World War II in North America, the inclusive term modernism may be more useful than Art Deco. Los Angeles and New York were cities where a majority of European immigrant designers formed creative communities as they attempted...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inThe Routledge Companion to Art Deco pp. 67 - 88
Main Author McGuire, Laura
Format Book Chapter
LanguageEnglish
Published Routledge 2019
Edition1
Subjects
Donald Deskey
Alexandr Rodchenko
Art Deco
Young Man
International Film Service
Elsa Schiaparelli
Frederick Kiesler
Immigrant Designers
Paul Cret
Vice Versa
Joseph Urban
Panama Pacific International Exposition
Art Deco Style
Modern Design
Bird’s Eye
American Modern Design
Gorham Manufacturing Company
Tubular Steel Furniture
French Art Moderne
Lillian Kiesler Private Foundation
Commercial Commissions
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Summary:This chapter describes the work of immigrants in the decades leading up to World War II in North America, the inclusive term modernism may be more useful than Art Deco. Los Angeles and New York were cities where a majority of European immigrant designers formed creative communities as they attempted to make inroads for modern design. Bullocks Wilshire is often cited as a masterpiece of Art Deco design, and the architecture and interiors clearly embodied a variety of impulses toward the modern, the mobile, the mechanical, the eclectic, and the primitive—all more or less accepted characteristics of Art Deco. The foundations of modernism in North America were partly laid by a small number of Austro-Hungarian and German immigrants who arrived in the US just prior to World War I, and who often supported one another based on common ethnicity and design interests.
ISBN:1472485149
9781472485144
DOI:10.4324/9780429032165-4