You can see some of Alfred Wallis’s artwork at Tate St. Ives. The gallery is close to where Wallis lived, and you can also visit some of the places that he saw every day. You can see his art in the gallery and play on the beach next to his cottage.
Art Deco
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- The Art Story – Art Deco
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- Gemological Institute of America – The Timeless Allure of Art Deco
- 20th Century Architecture – Art Deco
- Art in Context – Art Deco – A Summary of the Art Deco Era
- The Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia – Art Deco
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Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students.
- Art Deco – Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up)
Also known as: Moderne, style moderne
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Last Updated: Oct 24, 2023 • Article History
Table of Contents
Leon Bakst: costume design for Ballets Russes
Category: Arts & Culture
also called: style moderne . (Show more)
Related Artists: Eva Zeisel René Lalique Eliel Saarinen Erté Robert Mallet-Stevens . (Show more)
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Oct. 22, 2023, 11:39 PM ET (New York Times)
Oct. 14, 2023, 10:28 AM ET (NBC)
Top Questions
What is Art Deco?
Art Deco is a popular design style of the 1920s and ’30s characterized especially by sleek geometric or stylized forms and by the use of man-made materials.
Chicago Board of Trade
When was the Art Deco era?
Characteristics of the Art Deco style originated in France in the mid-to-late 1910s, came to maturation during the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes held in Paris in 1925, and developed into a major style in western Europe and the United States during the 1930s.
world’s fair: Modernism and Cold War rivalries
What are the main characteristics of the Art Deco style?
The characteristic features of Art Deco reflect admiration for the modernity of the machine and for the inherent design qualities of machine-made objects—e.g., relative simplicity, planarity, symmetry, and unvaried repetition of elements. Art Deco objects often showcase simple, clean shapes, usually with a “streamlined” look; ornament that is geometric or stylized from representational forms such as florals, animals, and sunrays; and use of man-made substances, including plastics, vita-glass, and reinforced concrete, often combined with such natural materials as jade, silver, ivory, and chrome.
Chrysler Building
What was Art Deco influenced by?
Among the formative influences on Art Deco were Art Nouveau, the Bauhaus, Cubism, and Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. Practitioners of Art Deco also found inspiration in American Indian, Egyptian, and early Classical sources as well as from nature.
Bauhaus
What is the difference between Art Deco and Art Nouveau?
Like Art Deco, Art Nouveau is an ornamental style applied to such media as architecture, interior design, jewelry, and illustration. Both styles were popular in Europe and the United States, but Art Nouveau flourished earlier, between 1890 and 1910; Art Deco reached its height in the late 1920s and early ’30s. Art Nouveau emphasized nature, and objects were characterized especially by asymmetrical sinuous lines, often taking the form of flower stalks and buds, vine tendrils, insect wings, and other delicate natural objects. Art Deco, on the other hand, celebrated the modern machine and promoted geometric lines and sleek forms.
Art Nouveau
Art Deco, movement in the decorative arts and architecture that originated in the 1920s and developed into a major style in western Europe and the United States during the 1930s. Its name was derived from the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes, held in Paris in 1925, where the style was first exhibited. Art Deco design represented modernism turned into fashion. Its products included both individually crafted luxury items and mass-produced wares, but, in either case, the intention was to create a sleek and anti-traditional elegance that symbolized wealth and sophistication.
The distinguishing features of the style are simple, clean shapes, often with a “streamlined” look; ornament that is geometric or stylized from representational forms; and unusually varied, often expensive materials, which frequently include man-made substances (plastics, especially Bakelite; vita-glass; and ferroconcrete) in addition to natural ones (jade, silver, ivory, obsidian, chrome, and rock crystal). Though Art Deco objects were rarely mass-produced, the characteristic features of the style reflected admiration for the modernity of the machine and for the inherent design qualities of machine-made objects (e.g., relative simplicity, planarity, symmetry, and unvaried repetition of elements).
More From Britannica
Latin American architecture: Art Deco
Among the formative influences on Art Deco were Art Nouveau, the Bauhaus, Cubism, and Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. Decorative ideas came from American Indian, Egyptian, and early classical sources as well as from nature. Characteristic motifs included nude female figures, animals, foliage, and sun rays, all in conventionalized forms.
Most of the outstanding Art Deco creators designed individually crafted or limited-edition items. They included the furniture designers Jacques Ruhlmann and Maurice Dufrène; the architect Eliel Saarinen; metalsmith Jean Puiforcat; glass and jewelry designer René Lalique; fashion designer Erté; artist-jewelers Raymond Templier, H.G. Murphy, and Wiwen Nilsson; and the figural sculptor Chiparus. The fashion designer Paul Poiret and the graphic artist Edward McKnight Kauffer represent those whose work directly reached a larger audience. New York City’s Rockefeller Center (especially its interiors supervised by Donald Deskey; built between 1929 and 1940), the Chrysler Building by William Van Alen, and the Empire State Building by Shreve, Lamb & Harmon are the most monumental embodiments of Art Deco. During the 1930s the style took over South Beach in Miami, Florida, producing an area known as the Art Deco historic district.
Although the style went out of fashion in most places during World War II, beginning in the late 1960s there was a renewed interest in Art Deco design. Into the 21st century Art Deco continued to be a source of inspiration in such areas as decorative art, fashion, and jewelry design.
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica This article was most recently revised and updated by Adam Augustyn.
How did he paint?
Alfred Wallis painted at the kitchen table of his home in St Ives. He used scrap materials that he found around him. He didn’t have much money, so he used bits of spare paint from the boat industry in the town. Shopkeepers’ would save old grocery boxes and crates for him to paint on. He left parts of the boxes showing through his works and kept the odd shapes of the boards, so that you can see what they are.
Look closely at the image above. What do you think Wallis has painted on? What scrap materials can you find that you could turn into a work of art?
What are his paintings about?
Alfred Wallis painted the places he saw and things he did during his life. The sea was very important to him. He worked as a fisherman, sailor and scrap merchant before he became an artist. Some of his paintings are of his memories of working on ships and boats. He also made paintings that show parts of St Ives.
Wallis made the important things in his paintings the largest. The Blue Ship shows a big sailing boat surrounded by the sea, piers and lighthouses. He wanted to make the ship the centre of attention. Things didn’t have to look like they do in real life. His pictures of St Ives look a bit like the town, but the roads and houses are changed. Sometimes, his buildings float like islands in the sea.
What would be the centre of attention in a picture of where you live? You could cut and tear some images from an old magazine or newspaper and mix them together.
Why is Alfred Wallis important?
Alfred Wallis inspired lots of other artists. They liked how he arranged simple shapes and played with scale and different materials to make his pictures. In 1928, he met the painters Winifred and Ben Nicholson, and Kit Wood. Their friendship helped Wallis exhibit his work and become known outside of St Ives. His paintings became very popular, but Wallis did not sell many of them during his lifetime.
Joan Miro, and his paintings
Born in 1893, Joan Miro was a famous, Spanish Catalan artist. He did works in sculpture, painting, and worked as a ceramist. Born in the seaport city of Barcelona, much of his work was influenced by the scenic seaside town, and the distinct style that he found in the area. His father was a watchmaker, and his mother worked as a goldsmith, which means that he was exposed to the arts, and working with various forms of art, from a young age in the home. Some of the work that has been recovered, stems back to 1901, when Joan Miro was only 8 years old.
Miro initially went to business school as well as art school. He began his working career when he was a teenager as a clerk. In 1911, Miro overcame a serious battle with typhoid illness, and at about the same time he abandoned the business world completely to devote his entire life to painting. Miro’s early art, like that of the similarly influenced Fauves and Cubists exhibited in Barcelona, was inspired by works of Vincent van Gogh and Paul Cezanne. The resemblance of Miro’s work to that of the intermediate generation of the avant-garde has led scholars to dub this period his Catalan Fauvist period. In 1918, Joan Miro was set up for his first solo exhibit at the Dalmau Galleries in Barcelona.
In 1919 Miró made his first trip to Paris, France, and thereafter he spent the winters in Paris and the summers in Montroig. His first one-man show in Paris was held in 1921 and his paintings of this period reflect cubist influences. His painting, Montroig, for example, has a frontal, geometric pattern greatly influenced by cubism.
The Tilled Field (1923 – 1924) marked the turning point in Miro’s art toward a personal style. In the midst of a landscape with animals and delicately drawn objects are a large ear and eye; thus the person of the painter comes into the picture. The change in his art was furthered by his encounter with the works of Paul Klee (1879-1940), Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944), and Jean Arp (1887-1966).
In the 1920s, influenced by the writings of psychologist Sigmund Freud, the literary, intellectual, and artistic movement called Surrealism sought a revolution against the constraints of the rational mind; and by extension, they saw the rules of a society as oppressive. Surrealism also embraces a Marxist ideology that demands an orthodox approach to history as a product of the material interaction of collective interests, and many renowned Surrealism artists later on became 20th century Counterculture symbols such as Marxism Revolutionary Che Guevara. While he was in Paris, Joan Miro was introduced to Surrealism. Although Miro never joined the Surrealist circle, he collaborated with Max Ernst, one of leading Surrealist. In 1928, he exhibited with a group of renowned surrealist painters, including Salvador Dali and Rene Magritte in Paris; even though Surrealism has many influences in his work, Miro retained his own personal style, and distinct form in most of the works that he distributed and exhibited.
In 1929 and early 1930s, Joan Miro took an interest in the form of art work, where he worked with many collages. This eventually led him to make surrealist sculptures that he created during this period of his career as well. During this period, he was also prone to experimenting with many other art forms and mediums of expression. Some of these include: engraving, watercolors, lithographs, pastels, and he even did work with painting over coppers. From this period, there are 2 pieces which are most celebrated by Joan Miro; they come in the form of 2 sculptures that are on display at the UNESCO in Paris; these pieces are titled the wall of the moon, and the wall of the sun.
For several years to follow, Joan Miro was known to work in various art forms, created various mediums, and used all types of work methods, to create new pieces. For the next thirty years of his career, much of his work was done to showcase his distinct style of art, and the manner in which he could create, regardless of which mediums he was working with. During this time much of his work was also placed in a number of individuals, as well as group exhibitions, which brought notoriety to his work, and to the Catalan style which he would create most of his pieces around.
I try to apply colors like words that shape poems, like notes that shape music. ”
– Joan Miro
The final period of the work which Joan Miro is most noted for, came from the end of the 1960s, which would last up until his death, marking the end of his art career. During these final years, he took more of a central focus on doing public works of art. This came in the form of monumental pieces, and public displays, which were specifically created for the enjoyment by the public, and were to be displayed in a number of distinct locations.
The body language, and the freshness which were depicted in his work, were some of the most well-known characteristics, which were found on the canvases that were created by Joan Miro during the later part of his career. The special attention that he paid to the material he was working on, and the distinct forms, were also characteristic of the works he created during the final years of his career as an artist.
During the final years of his career, much of the work which Joan Miro created, took more of an interest in symbolism, and the message that was being portrayed, as opposed to the actual image, and the exacting features which were created in these works. He would take less focus on the theme of the figure that was being depicted, and focused more on the symbol and the message that emerged from the final piece that was depicted to the general public. The eccentric style in which Joan Miro created, is an embodiment of the unique approach he took not only to the work he created, but to the art world in general, and the many unique forms of art which he created during the course of his illustrious career.
In 1976, the Joan Miro Foundation Center of Contemporary Arts was opened in the city of Barcelona, which was his home city, and where he would often return for his inspirations. In 1979, four years after this opened, he was also named the Doctor Honoris Causa, by the University of Barcelona, for the work he had done, as well as his influence on art.
Not only did Miro take a distinct approach to creation, but he also focused on a number of mediums and forms during his career. This has made Joan Miro one of the most celebrated Spanish artists, and one who has created a unique style which many followed years after his death in 1983. Along with The Persistence of Memory by Salvador Dali, and The Son of Man by Rene Magritte, Joan Miro’s The Tilled Field and Harlequin’s Carnival become the iconic images of Surrealism Movement.
