I first encountered this book at the Los Angeles Public Library and wondered how it got past me! I've seen a few books on the graphic from the Art Deco era. None of the has the breadth and depth of Patricia Frantz Kery's big book and it is a BIG BOOK! Mine cost me over $100.00 and I know I got and keep getting my monies worth. It's value is also in that it defines the cultural differences they graphics represent and one can easily distinguish between German or French, once the book is studied. And it has to be studied! It's many things about Art Deco in one book. It also covers the 'fine art' approaches to Art Deco. Also, unlike other books I've seen, it is strictly about the drawing, painting, and printing of Art Deco. Her own gallery was, or maybe still is, in New York. Had I known about the book when I was living in NJ in the 1980s, I would have visited. You can certainly buy more recent books with brighter pages. Still, you will not find many as thorough, detailed, and written with as much clarity as Patricia Frantz Kery's Art Deco Graphics.
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About the author
A fine look at a decorative art.
There are lots of good books about Art Deco as an overall art style but Patricia Kery seems to have corned the market with this title covering graphics. Large size, 320 pages and with 476 illustrations it will most likely be the standard reference for many years. The first chapter, `Foundations of Art Deco graphic style' is a lucid explanation and the following chapters (printed on light mauve paper) expand on this excellent start. The illustrations are fortunately printed on glossy white paper. Good as the book is though I was rather disappointed with the presentation. All of the spreads with several pictures have them deliberately unaligned and where there are only two images to a page they are usually the same size with a lot of white space and I mean a LOT. I think one of the images should have been big and the other smaller, thus reducing all the white space to a minimum. Typography on the mauve text pages is a mess, various sizes are used and the caption size is really too small. The left-hand page numbers are on the inside of the page next to the books spine, this seems a silly bit of designer whimsy. The book is very comprehensive and rightly shows how the creative output of mostly European artists was used commercially. For an American perspective have a look at this beautifully designed paperback: Streamline: American Art Deco. This has excellent illustrations showing how the style was adapted (those famous three speed lines) by American creative folk to sell products rather than a European fine art genre. ***FOR AN INSIDE LOOK click 'customer images' under the cover.
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- Reviewed in the United States on August 4, 2002
- Reviewed in the United States on April 15, 2003
There are lots of good books about Art Deco as an overall art style but Patricia Kery seems to have corned the market with this title covering graphics. Large size, 320 pages and with 476 illustrations it will most likely be the standard reference for many years. The first chapter, `Foundations of Art Deco graphic style' is a lucid explanation and the following chapters (printed on light mauve paper) expand on this excellent start. The illustrations are fortunately printed on glossy white paper.
Good as the book is though I was rather disappointed with the presentation. All of the spreads with several pictures have them deliberately unaligned and where there are only two images to a page they are usually the same size with a lot of white space and I mean a LOT. I think one of the images should have been big and the other smaller, thus reducing all the white space to a minimum. Typography on the mauve text pages is a mess, various sizes are used and the caption size is really too small. The left-hand page numbers are on the inside of the page next to the books spine, this seems a silly bit of designer whimsy.
The book is very comprehensive and rightly shows how the creative output of mostly European artists was used commercially. For an American perspective have a look at this beautifully designed paperback: Streamline: American Art Deco. This has excellent illustrations showing how the style was adapted (those famous three speed lines) by American creative folk to sell products rather than a European fine art genre.
***FOR AN INSIDE LOOK click 'customer images' under the cover.
Images in this review
