The term Art Deco is used to describe a style of decorative art popular between the heyday of Art Nouveau and the emergence of the International Style in the 1950s, roughly contemporaneous with the radical forms of avant-garde artistic expression exemplified by De Stijl, the Russian avant-garde, and the Bauhaus.
The origins can be traced to Paris circa 1910. After 1930, Art Deco diverged in various directions.
It was subsumed by the pompous neoclassicism of the 1930s, for example in Fascist architecture in Italy, and it survived in the USA until the 1950s in bakelite radios and plastic handbags.
The name was derived from the 1925 world exhibition of applied arts in Paris: Exposition internationale des arts décoratifs et industriels modernes.
The very words Art Deco summon images of opulent curved forms, exquisite furniture, costly fabrics, and sophisticated garments – and only rarely of graphic art.
And yet the printed image witnessed some remarkable achievements during this period, as can be witnessed in the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe (Museum of Applied Arts) in Hamburg.