Through a brief history of Art Deco, people will learn that through the help of many previous cultures and earlier art movements; Art Deco was able to capture the hearts of designers and citizens in American culture during the 1920's and 1930's. "This distinctive modernist decorative arts style was a popular choice for the architecture, interior design, furniture, illustration, graphic arts, ceramics, metalware, and other accessories of the 1920s and 1930s. Its imagery reflected the events of two key and contrasting decades in American history - celebrating the technological marvels of the modern age, the social frivolities of the roaring twenties, and the heroic workers of the depression years". .
Art Deco was not started in American culture. It took shape over seas in Europe. One of the first showcases was in Paris in 1925 called the Exposition Internationale des Arts Decoratifs Industriels et Modernes, which displayed delicately worked French furniture. This Modernistic or Style Moderne, .
which it was known as during the 1920's and 1930's, began to break into the cultures around the world, and American designers truly latched on. .
The art deco style arrived in America through many different ways. Actually, before the 1925 fair Americans were able to purchase European designed items in the modernistic style in major department stores, like Macy's, and there were even showcases of these works in New York City's Metropolitan Museum of Art as early as 1923. However, it was not until 1929, that there was a trade fair that introduced American designers" works in this new modernistic style. It was held at the Metropolitan Museum and called The Architect and the Industrial Arts: An Exhibition of Contemporary Design. An immigrant architect and designer planned it, by the name of Eliel Saarinen. The presses reaction to this new style was one of great enthusiasm, and before long there were periodicals and pictures everywhere thus, the community was able to perceive the newly developed style.
