CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 7/22/2015

Modern Taste: Art Deco in Paris 1910-1935

Jean Carlu's 1931 poster for the Exposition Union des Artistes Modernes is reproduced from Modern Taste, Fondacion Juan March's impeccable new survey of Art Deco art, architecture, design, film and advertising in Paris, 1910-1935. Of the dissident group, which included Sonia Delaunay, Jean Prouvé, Jean Fouquet, Eileen Grey and others, the editors write, "The Societé des Artistes Decorateurs (SAD) had always been able to absorb divergences of viewpoint, but… the threat posed by the Modern Movement in Germany, Holland and France and the political stance of many of the members meant that by 1929 it had become intolerable to many designers to continue to represent themselves as 'decorators' serving the interest of wealthy individual clients. The journalist Ernest Tisserand had detected a 'whiff of secession' as early as 1926, writing in that year that he expected to see a salon of independent Decorative Artists in the following year. Sure enough, in 1929 a group of designers decided to split off from the SAD and established a new organization, the Union des Artistes Modernes (UAM). The words 'artist' and 'modern' were clearly significant, claiming both a higher status than that of 'decorative artists' and fixing their colors to the mast of modernity."