Art Deco: The French Aesthetic

Monday, October 13, 2003—Friday, October 1, 2004
Wells Fargo Center, Seventh and Marquette, Minneapolis
Free Exhibition

In the summer of 1971, The Minneapolis Institute of Arts organized and presented an encyclopedic exhibition devoted to Art Deco. Nearly 1,500 works culled from ninety private and public collections in Europe and America represented the most ambitious effort ever to assess this diverse, international, "un-style" which stubbornly defies ready definition.

Thirty-two years later, in this encore reprise, the focus is purposely narrowed to luxurious French designs drawn solely from the Institute's holdings, all acquired since the 1971 exhibition. The work of Sèvres, Jean Puiforcat, René Lalique, Robert Mallet-Stevens, La Maison Desny and Edgar Brandt are among twenty-five select pieces--haute and nouvelle--documenting Art Deco's diverse phases, from the classical-elegant, to the exotic-expressive, and ultimately, to the austere-moderne.