American Art Deco

New York: Thames & Hudson, 1986. Softcover. G+ (some shelf wear at corners; marker slash on bottom third of textblock). Color illustrated wraps wraps with black spine and white lettering; 288 pp. 233 color, 269 BW plates. "The term 'American Art Deco,' as used in the title of this book, covers items made in the United States both by American-born designers and by European designers who settled in the USA between the early 1900s and the 1930s. The application to American design in the 1920s and 1930s of the two Art Deco strains described above - the Art Deco of France and the Modernism of Germany and Austria - fell into two distinct categories: first, architecture, and, secondly, the broad spectrum of the decorative (i.e., applied) arts. As will become evident, vanguard European decorative art was interpreted differently in these two fields, both of which then underwent pronounced modifications of their own in the wake of the stock market crash of October, 1929. The impact of the Crash cannot be overstated. Among its influences on the decorative arts was the creation of the profession of industrial designer, which, in turn, led to a vast project of product redesiign, carefully staged to restimulate consumer buying in the 1930s." - quote from Introduction.