Paris Art Deco

The art of its architectural details. With the 1925 Exposition Internationale des Arts Decoratifs et Industriels Moderne, the city of Paris heralded in the New Era. Paris was the cradle of Art Deco, a style that emerged in the 1920s as a reaction to the sinuous tentacles of Art Nouveau in the early 1900s, and an alternative to the Machine Age imagery emerging from Germany and the Soviet Union. The Exposition des Arts Decoratifs et Industriels was intended to revive the French luxury trades and it popularized a jazzy style of decoration that drew on many sources and expressed the spirit of the age. The Expo later gave its name to Art Deco which achieved some of its most refined and exuberant manifestations in Paris, while rapidly spreading across the world, from London to Los Angeles. Born into the Art Deco Age, author/photographer Arnold Schwartzman has savoured his many visits to Paris, and is now eager to share with the reader his journey through the boulevards of La Ville Lumiere.