The Art Deco design movement touched every creative medium from roughly 1910 to 1940, and prints and posters of the age were no exception. Ultimately about pleasure and modernity, the style widely reflected themes of fast-paced city life and featured bold geometric forms.
Given many names over the years, including Streamline Moderne and Style Paquebot or 'ocean liner style', Art Deco mingles a diverse clutch of emerging styles, including Cubism, Expressionism, Futurism, Vorticism, and the imaginative influence of the Ballets Russes. Artists of the age also broadly appropriated African and ancient motifs, especially those from Egyptian culture, following global interest in the excavation of Tutankhamun's tomb in 1922. The following selection gives an overview of European and American printmakers whose work captures the contradictory spirit of the age.
