The Decorative Thirties Book

This book is a companion to "The Decorative Twenties" and tells the story of the most significant aspects of the decorative arts in France, England and the USA during the Thirties. Martin Battersby discusses "taste" rather than abstract themes of design. He provides a study of the minutiae of fashions in forms, motifs, material and colours, their evolutions and the personalities who influenced these evolutions. The author personally knew many of the artists whose work he discusses in this book including Curtis Moffat, Rex Whistler, Eugene Berman, Eileen Gray and Schiaparelli. He reveals a diversity of taste in the decorative arts in the Thirties where stark modernism co-existed with neo-baroque and Victorian revivals, the new romantics drew on cubism and and expressionism, and surrealism ran riot. Martin Battersby was internationally recognized as a trompe l'oeil artist and mural decorator and an expert on Art Nouveau and Art Deco, and his acquisitions form the basis of the collection now at the Brighton Museum. The editor, Philippe Garner, is author of "Emile Galle" (1976) and is the editor of "The Phaidon Encyclopedia of Decorative Arts, 1890-1940" (1978).Read More