Art Deco
(1920s - 1930s)

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Art Deco was an innovative design style popular in the 1920s and 1930s that took over from Art Nouveau.   It was used primarily in furniture, jewellery, textiles, ceramics, and interior design.  Its sleek, streamlined forms conveyed elegance and sophistication.   Although the style took shape in the 1920s, the term Art Deco was not applied to it until 1925, when it was recognized as a result of the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes, the seminal design exhibition that was held in Paris.  France 1925.  Sheet of 7 stamps issued for the International Stamp Exhibition "Le Pavillon d'un Collectioneur", issued at the occasion of the International Exhibition of Decorative Arts in Paris. Below are shown three individual stamps from the sheet.

• "La Lumière" exists in two face values, 10 and 75 c, 

• "Poterie",

• "Architecture" exists in two face values, 25 and 75 c. 

Art Deco developed both as a reaction against the elaborate and sinuous turn-of-the-century Art Nouveau style and as a new aesthetic that celebrated the machine age, which was gathering momentum.  Its central characteristics are clean lines and sharp edges, stylishness and symmetry.  Bright primary colours, the use of chrome, enamel, and highly polished stone, and references to ancient Egyptian and Greek design are also associated with the style.  The finest Art Deco designs were not generally mass-produced; however, its inherent simplicity made it adaptable to the mass production of less refined objects such as cheap jewellery, tableware, and household items. 

Of particular philatelic interest for the Art Deco art style is the French engraver Abel Mignon, whom the French magazine Relais No. 91 (September 2005) honoured with an an extensive article. Click on any of the thumbnails below to read the article (in French only). 

• Magazine Relais No. 91, September 2005, pages 29-32. The links will open in new windows. 

Art Deco became more geometric and linear as objects were increasingly mass produced and as the United States supplanted France as the spiritual centre of the movement.  In America, the style found expression in objects as diverse as locomotives, skyscrapers, roadside diners, radio cabinets, jukeboxes, and advertising displays.  

Also in New Zealand Art Deco has found its explicit expression in many cities.  In 1999 New Zealand issued a set of four stamps showing Art Nouveau architecture in Auckland, Napier, Hastings, and Westport.   

• New Zealand 1999 (Information from The New Zealand Stamp Collection 1999, by New Zealand Post.  

  • 40c:  The Civic Theatre in Auckland is the only movie palace in New Zealand built on the scale of the huge fantasy cinemas, of which every respectable American city could boast of at least one.  

  • 1.00 NZD:  Napier's massive earthquake in 1931 was a disaster for the city and the province of Hawke's Bay.  The new Napier arose at a time when architects were seeking a new style for a new century and buildings were beginning to take on a new look,   The stamp shows The Masonic Hotel, built to replace Napier's premier hotel on an unsurpassed sea-front site, and was, when it was completed in 1932, certainly the largest and probably the most strikingly modern building in the new city centre. 

  • 1.50 NZD:  Hastings did not suffer as badly as Napier on the 1931 earthquake.  It was further from the epicentre, had fewer large masonry buildings and did not lose its water supply as completely as Napier, enabling the fires which broke out to be contained. But many buildings were lost, and most of the facades.  As a result, Hastings too looked, by 1933, like a brand new, modern city, built like Napier in the styles fashionable at the time -- Stripped Classical, Spanish Mission and Art Deco.  

  • People in other countries are often surprised that Art Deco reached isolated New Zealand,  It certainly did -- even its more isolated parts.  Westport boasts two important Art Deco buildings -- The Westport Borough Council Building, and the former Buller County Council Building (depicted on the stamp).  

Art Deco declined after 1935 but enjoyed a revival in the 1960s and 1970s, particularly in the US, where numerous illustrations appeared in books and magazines.  A philatelic example is the below stamp depicting Ayn Rand.  In 1999 the United States added to its Literary Arts stamp series the novelist and philosopher Ayn Rand, the author of We The Living (1936), Anthem (1938), The Fountainhead (1943) and Atlas Shrugged (1957). Born Alissa Rosenbaum in St. Petersburg, Russia, Ayn Rand came to the United States in 1926 at the age of 21, and later became a U.S. citizen.  

• USA 1999.  Ayn Rand.  Stamp and First Day Cover, cancelled on 22nd April 1999 in New York. The stamp is designed with clear reference to ancient Greek design

Ayn Rand believed that a productive society is the result of individual freedom and effort. Her philosophy about Objectivism influenced all of her books and made her a controversial, but respected author.  Ayn Rand was known as an ardent stamp collector since the age of 10. The Ayn Rand stamp issue is an elusive example of "modern" Art Nouveau. 

Sources and acknowledgements:

• Microsoft Encarta 2002.

• Mr. Pierre Courtiade (France) for submitting scans of the article about Abel Mignon. 

Below is a listing of leading artists (not necessarily represented on stamps) from the Art Deco period. None of the artists have appeared on stamps. 

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