Art Deco grew out of a conscious effort to simplify the elaborate turn-of-the-century Art Nouveau style, to make it more responsive to the new machine-age ideals of speed and glamour. Two of Art Deco's earliest practitioners were the couturier Paul Poiret (1879-1944) and the jeweler and glassmaker René Lalique; their designs featured delicate unconstricted, flowing lines. Further important influences were the Russian ballet producer Sergey Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, with its Oriental stage decor and exotic colors; King Tutankhamen's tomb (opened in 1922), which created a vogue for Egyptian motifs; and cubism, with its elegantly geometric aesthetic. Leading designers of the 1920s and '30s were Jacques Émile Ruhlmann (1879-1933) in furniture, Jean Dunand (1877-1942) in lacquerwork, Jean Puiforcat (1897-1945) in silver, and Lalique in jewelry.

Art Deco became steadily more geometric and linear as objects were increasingly mass-produced and as the U.S. supplanted France as the spiritual center of the movement. It found expression in objects as diverse as locomotives, skyscrapers, roadside diners, radio cabinets, jukeboxes, and advertising displays. Principal European monuments of Art Deco were Ruhlmann's Paris exhibition rooms, Le Pavillon d'un Collectioneur (1925), and the grand salon (c. 1930) of the French liner Normandie, with lighting and decor by Lalique. Primary examples of Art Deco in the U.S. are the interior of Radio City Music Hall (1931) in New York City, designed by Donald Deskey (1894-1989); and William van Alen's (1882-1954) Chrysler Building (1930, New York City), with its sleek aluminum-banded facades and arched and pointed spire.

Art Deco declined after 1935 but has enjoyed a significant revival since the 1960s.