The Wichita Art Museum’s “American Art Deco: Designing for the People, 1918-1939” and the Wichita-Sedgwick County Historical Museum’s “Art Deco of the Plains” both focus on Art Deco. I don’t want to give too many details, and I have included only a small portion of the exhibits on this page. My hope is that it will encourage you to check out the two museums to see the exhibits for yourself.
Art Deco, also called style moderne, was a movement in the arts and architecture popular in the 1920s and 1930s. Encyclopedia Britannica described it as, “The distinguishing features of the style are simple, clean shapes, often with a “streamlined” look; ornament that is geometric or stylized from representational forms; and unusually varied, often expensive materials, which frequently include man-made substances (plastics, especially Bakelite; vita-glass; and ferroconcrete) in addition to natural ones (jade, silver, ivory, obsidian, chrome, and rock crystal).”
I love the Art Deco style, I have been a fan since my visit to Miami Beach as a little kid.
Here’s a look at some of the fantastic pieces in the Wichita Art Museum’s exhibit.
Here’s a look at some of the pieces in the Wichita-Sedgwick County Historical Museum’s collection.
And finally here is a look at some of Wichita’s Art Deco buildings.
Other stories featuring Art Deco:
Check out some of Wichita’s other public arts. I like to call it, How Great Our Art.
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