Art Deco was an innovative and ultra-distinctive style of design, which spanned the boom times of the Roaring ’20s and the bust of the Depression-ridden 1930s. Derived from the French term l'art décoratif, it embraced all forms of design, from fine arts to fashion, furniture to film, photography to transport, and exterior architecture to interior design. It celebrated the newly mechanised modern world, yet embraced both handmade and mechanical manufacture of all kinds of creations, from everyday products to exclusive works of art.
It originated in France in 1925 as the successor to Art Nouveau, then quickly spread around the world to bring its distinctive style to the streets and skylines of cities from Paris to New York, Sydney to Shanghai, London to Vienna. It was the style of the flapper girl and the office typist, of the factory worker and daredevil car driver, of the fantasy world of Hollywood and the real world of the Paris Left Bank. Art Deco was avantgarde and it was everywhere, from cinemas to skyscrapers, from luxury ocean liners to exotic automobiles – and indeed to motorcycles too, like the French Majestic, a sort of two-wheeled Delahaye car, or the five-cylinder FWD Megola made in Germany, the American Neracar that was also built in Europe, and the built in America in 1935 as the one-off creation of a Michigan-based metalworker employed by Oldsmobile, based on his 1930 1300cc/79ci four-cylinder Henderson KJ Streamline model – the ultimate expression of this prestigious American brand’s engineering.
