Tag Archives: The Arts

Arts & Literature, Design, Essays, History

Art Movements: ‘How Art Deco Shaped 100 Years Of Forward-Thinking Design’

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Artnet (February 27, 2025) by Caroline Roux

One hundred years ago, a sprawling international exhibition was staged in Paris. It was intended to dazzle visitors with all that was new in architecture, design, fashion, and jewelry, and to establish France as the unassailable arbiter of taste of the western world. Called “L’Exposition internationale des arts décoratifs,” it ran from April to October 1925, attracted 16 million people, and was a celebration of Modernism and Art Deco design.

It occupied nearly 70 acres of central Paris, on both sides of the river Seine, with 20 countries building bespoke pavilions that celebrated the new progressive style—sleek and geometric—inside and out. Needless to say, around two-thirds of the exhibitors were French.

Art Deco is a design movement that emerged in the 1920s and 1930s, defined by bold geometry, rich colors, and lavish ornamentation. Blending influences from Cubism, Futurism, Bauhaus, and ancient Egyptian, Aztec, and African art, it exudes luxury through sleek symmetry, exotic materials, and jazz-age opulence. Art Deco was modern but not necessarily restrained.

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In the USA, the focus is on art, with a show of Tamara de Lempicka, the doyenne of Art Deco painters, at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston (9 March to 26 May) and a wide-ranging exhibition at the Nassau County Museum of Art, covering everything from Tiffany lamps to artworks by Fernand Leger and Guy Pene du Bois. There was even a show of Leonard Lauder’s collection of Art Deco Architecture postcards at the Museum of the City of New York. Sorry, but you’ve missed that one.

Caroline Roux writes on contemporary art and design, She is a regular contributor to the Financial Times, World of Interiors and Galerie magazine.

Book Reviews, Culture, Reviews, The Arts

“Leonardo Da Vinci – An Untraceable Life” (2025)

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL (February 7, 2025): The portrait of Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci, more exactly the portrait of one Lisa Gherardini, was executed by fits and starts very early in the 16th century. By now it has been seen by billions of people and is regarded as a painting like no other. Many visitors to the Louvre, where the “Mona Lisa” is displayed, must surely go only to see what all the fuss is about.

Some people feel that the sitter’s beauty is perfect, others that her looks are nothing special. There are those who say, thinking perhaps of Nat King Cole’s charming song, that her smile is enigmatic. But a smile without a known reason is scarcely an enigma, a puzzle to be solved. What is enigmatic is the extent of Mona Lisa’s stardom.

Whatever its source, the aura surrounding the “Mona Lisa”—in addition to bringing millions of admission-paying visitors to the Louvre each year—has contributed to the pop superstardom of the painting’s creator. Leonardo is everywhere. The proliferation of biographies and videos, the ill-researched journalism, the pseudo-historical claims, the blockbuster shows, the promotion of newly touted works that may just possibly be unknown Leonardo pieces—all this is the subject of Stephen Campbell’s “Leonardo da Vinci: An Untraceable Life.”

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