Black and White Photograph - Buffalo Art Deco

Art Deco relief in Buffalo, New York.

The name Art Deco comes from the 1925 Exposition Internationale des Arts Decoratifs Industriels et Modernes, held in Paris, which celebrated living in the modern world. The term was coined and popularized in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

The style began in France but America became the center of the artistic movement.

Art Deco was essentially a style of decoration and was applied to jewelry, clothing, furniture and handicrafts as well as buildings. Industrial designers created Art Deco motifs (patterns) to adorn their streamlined cars, trains and kitchen appliances. Art Deco ornamentation consists largely of low relief geometrical designs, often in the form of parallel straight lines, zigzags, chevrons and stylized floral motifs.