Art Deco End Tables, for a Style that Will Endure
The right art deco end tables can make a powerful statement in your living room whether your décor is contemporary, ultra-modern, traditional, Victorian, or even mission-style. Many people will confuse other styles of the era: Art Noveau, Constructivism, Cubism, Futurism, Bauhaus, and Modernism with Art Deco. It was a time of great artistic expression between two eras of austerity in America.
Art Deco itself as a style is based strongly on logic, mathematics, and geometrical shapes. Many see it as an elegant, perhaps more stylish version of modernism which is one reason art deco end tables can easily compliment a modern décor.
Popular themes in the Art Deco style include trapezoids, crystals, co-centric circles, strong linear influences, chevrons, sweeping curves, and of course the sunburst. In its early ages, art décor end tables might be manufactured with like predominant art deco materials: stainless steel, aluminum, inlaid wood, and glass: colored, frosted, and clear. Popular interior designers of the period who also served as furniture designers: Delgado, Lempicka, and Rohlmann are still popular today almost 80 years later. As a style Art Deco has had a number of mini renaissances and remains a strong reminder of a pre WWII post WWI America a time of opulence, opportunity, and a reaction to the austerity required by WWI. A lasting monument of art deco is the Golden Gate Bridge a symbol recognized the world over.
Regional influences also played heavily into choices for furniture design during the period. Materials plentiful in the Northwest are very different from the materials available in the South. So while one might have Art Deco end tables with a chevron or sunburst, that table may be made from native hardwood trees with contrasting bands in birch and mahogany in the Pacific Northwest while a living room in the South might have softer woods such as southern pine and southern red oak available and therefore incorporate the softer woods with heavy lacquer to protect the surface and sides. The contrasting bands may be different colored lacquers or paint or stain on the underlying wood. Either way they are beautiful timeless art deco end tables, but different materials preserving regional differences.
If you want to find great reproductions of art deco end tables, look no further. Finding antiques from the period is difficult and cumbersome as there was a large reactionary backlash against Art Deco as a style during WWII, 1940’s America. The brief renaissances since have not produced the dimension or scope of the body of work that was available in the 1920’s and 1930’s. Beware the “antiques” from overseas. Most of these furniture pieces are actually reproduction pieces, not true antiques. Art Deco was predominantly an American style and though it is represented around the world in architecture, the furniture created during the period was made for and utilized by Americans. The best Art Deco end tables currently available are beautiful reproductions. They are timeless pieces of art. Art Deco is a style that will endure.
