The Art Deco movement - with its emphasis on up-to-date individuality combined with good taste, fine materials and exquisite workmanship - became all the rage in France. Other countries produced their own versions of the style, but in furniture especially, the French predominated: the world had not seen such creative design for 125 years; on the one hand, the virtuoso cabinet-making of Ruhlmann, on the other, the brilliant originality of Gray and Legrain. Alastair Duncan introduces us to the work of over eighty architects, furniture makers and interior designers. The colour and monochrome photographs - almost all of them specially commissioned for this book - form a valuable portfolio of Art Deco furniture which should be of special value to those seeking comprehensive information about a design movement which has proved of lasting appeal both to collectors and to the general public.

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"Pierre Legrain and Rose Adler transformed bookbinding into a medium of playful and dazzling experimentation and craftsmanship. Their colorful, imaginative works, often made in exotic materials, are found only in a few prized collections and have rarely been available to the general public. Now, this selection of more than sixty designs, colored-paper maquettes, and realized bindings are collected in one exquisite volume, with insightful texts introducing the work and discussing its revolutionary effect on modern design. Among the brilliant array of bindings are ones made especially for works by Colette, Paul Verlaine, Andre Gide, Guillaume Apollinaire, Stephane Mallarme, Michel Leiris, and Jean Giraudoux."--from the publisher.