Customer Reviews

In the Deco Style

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This book has some very nice pictures in it, but it is lacking a lot. Its really disorganized into a art deco mismash. The art deco movement was so huge, its hard to place into an entire book, but there are somethings I would have liked to see in here. Some of the buildings in Los Angeles which has some amazing art deco architecture. The author completely skips over designers like Russell Wright and Walter Von Nessen. There there are things that plain just don't fit in here, there are many Moderne buildings, which is close, but not exactly deco, there is a random page on 1930's fashion and a whole section of 1980's art deco reproductions. I don't want to see reproductions, I want to see the real thing! I wish more would have been put in about buildings in America, but I understand this book was published in the UK.

"In the Deco Style" was first published by Rizzoli Publishing in 1987. In the nearly twenty years since it was published, a technological revolution has taken place in art book publishing. Today's art books are bigger and brighter and of a much higher print quality. There are many nice color photos in this book but on the printed page, they come across as comparatively dull and muted. If you want to see the difference that twenty years can make take a look at "Art Deco 1910-1939". In that book, the colors are warm and the photographs almost jump off the printed page.

This book was written 15-20 years after the Art Deco revival of the late 1960's. For its time, the book does a very good job of describing the Art Deco movement with all its many different schools. However, an additional two decades of scholarship has taken place and we now have a much more nuanced understanding of the time.

If you are an seriously interested in Art Deco, this book is very fine purchase. It is reasonably priced and there are many interesting photographs. However, if you are new to the subject, purchase "Art Deco 1910-1939", the single best coffee table style of book on the subject.