Discover art deco art for sale online today. Showcasing art from some of the most exciting art deco artists active today, our collection is ever-evolving with vibrant, powerful pieces. Browse today to find the art deco artwork for you, with a variety of styles and subjects available. Not sure where to start? Take a look at our art deco landscapes, still life and botanical paintings.
To help you in your search, we have highlighted two of our favourite artists, both producing some of the most fantastic art deco paintings currently on the market, Diana Rose Latourt and Yuliya Martynova.
Diana Rose Latourt’s Garden of Eden, 2019 depicts a fabulous jungle scene, cluttered with stylised foliage and dynamic colours. The art deco influence can be seen most in the painting’s largest tree, whose leaves are represented through a classic fish scale pattern. We love Latourt’s version of the art deco palette, as she includes blocks of bright pink and seafoam green against inky blank outlines.
Yuliya Martynova is a Kazakstani artist who immortalises the suspension of disbelief through her painting of clouds. Migration | Albion (2019) speaks to art deco’s preoccupation with nature, while her the flock of triangular paper planes creates a joyful symmetry.
Discover more Art Deco artists here.
History of Art Deco
Art deco is an artistic movement that ran from the 1920s to the 1930s. It’s extreme popularity in both Europe and American meant the impact of art deco was far reaching, inspiring a variety of mediums from architecture to paintings. Art deco was originally born in France, taking its name from the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes where the style was first exhibited in 1925. Enamored by technology, art deco turned mechanism into art through its symmetrical, geometric designs.
The style was in many ways a response to what came before, adopting key elements of Cubism and Art Nouveau. Much of art deco’s defining characteristics, clean lines and simple, repetitive patterns, draw on Central American and Egyptian influences. The most famous example of art deco Art is the Empire State Building created by the architecture firm Shreve, Lamb & Harmon and built in 1931.
Despite its explosive popularity during the Roaring Twenties, art deco art saw a sharp decline in the late 30s and 40s during the second wolrd war. The opulent designs, made in the spirit of decadence and optimism, no longer fit into a society devastated by conflict and wartime austerity. However, mounting interest in graphic design during the 1960s gave way to an art deco revival.
Development of art deco movement
Popular motifs within art deco
Art deco art was a homage to the streamlined design of the Machine Age. Sometimes this admiration was represented through trapezoids, triangular shapes and zigzagged symmetry, while other pieces are more botanical in their focus.
British ceramics artist Clarice Cliff moved away from the mechanistic designs usually found within art deco art, painting instead vibrant and stylistic impressions of nature. From snowdrops to windmills, Cliff became a perennial figure in the style. Her abstract, serpentine curves took art deco in a different direction and made her one of the UK’s most exalted ceramicists.
Along with Cliff’s exemplary sunburst motifs, René Jules Lalique married Classical imagery to the art deco movement. Lalique’s works such as ‘Blackbirds and Grapes’ and ‘The Bacchantes’ show a palpable love of Classical antiquity and mechanical, stylised repetition.
Mediums of art deco Art
The movement’s explosive popularity in Europe and America meant there was an appetite for art deco in a variety of mediums. art deco was most common in architecture, fashion, furniture and advertising. Fiat, Campari and other Italian companies hired artists such as Giorgio De Chirico to create art deco poster art for their products. The style was adopted by many Italian artists including Federico Seneca and Severo Pozzati, as art deco’s strength of composition and garnish colour palette appealed to the drama of Italian taste.
In fashion, art deco combined the experimentalism of Cubism through shapely, structured silhouettes with the era’s fascination with glamour and decadence through brilliant colours and light-reflecting materials such as satin. Similarly, an iconic characteristic of art deco furniture is the use of the mirror. Luxury was represented through expensive materials such as chrome, Bakelite and plate glass. Like a crowning jewel, mirrored accents would be set against dark lacquered mahogany or ivory to appear grandiose.
