Photo by Daniel Holton.
Spotlight Talks: 100 years of Art Deco at Kirkland Museum
The week of April 28 marks the 100th anniversary of the opening of the 1925 world's fair in Paris that introduced the world to Art Deco design! Celebrate the anniversary by joining Kirkland Museum curatorial staff and docents on Wednesday, April 30, for short, pop-up conversations about Art Deco objects in the Kirkland collection, including those featured in Vanity & Vice: American Art Deco.
The International Exposition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts was held from April 29 to October 25, 1925, in the center of Paris, France. Over 16 million visitors attended to see new architecture, interior design, furniture and other decorative arts. At least 20 countries exhibited. The United States declined the invitation because Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover felt there was no modern art in the United States, but hundreds of Americans attended the fair and brought ideas back home, where Art Deco then thrived into the 1940s. Art Deco is a strength of the Kirkland's decorative arts collection.
Fun Fact: In the 1920s, this style was called modern or moderne. The term "Art Deco" was adopted in the 1960s from the French phrase for decorative art in the name of the 1925 exposition, Arts Décoratifs.
