International Decorative Art

International Style, 1920s-1960s

Although “International Style” applies to architecture, some of its proponents, such as Eileen Gray, Pierre Jeanneret and Charlotte Perriand, designed decorative art and these objects could be considered also to represent International Style. The hallmarks of International Style architecture are simplistic, modernistic designs, generally with buildings of reinforced concrete, glass and steel. The term gained wide use when Alfred Barr, Director of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, gave the exhibition in 1932 titled Modern Architecture—International Exhibition, co-organized by Philip Johnson and Henry-Russell Hitchcock, with a companion book entitled International Style: Architecture Since 1922.