Resonance Art Deco Paris – Shanghai

Art Deco has been on the rise in the last 10 years, since I wrote post Art Deco in France. It has been the center of several major exhibition like “1925 When Art Deco dazzle the World” in Paris in 2014. Art Deco in China has also gained a lot of attention particular through Laszlo Hudec work as well as 2015 Word Congress on Art Deco in Shanghai. The link between Art Deco in France and China was shown in the small but beautiful “Art Deco, The French China connection” in Hong Kong in 2019. Now a new exhibition of showcasing Art Deco in Paris and Shanghai has opened in Shanghai. Showing many rare pieces, it is definitely worth a visit.

Located in the former British Consulate on the Bund, it matches this is a great location. The main theme of the exhibition is the strong link between art and craft in the 1920s and the 1930s, the art deco era. The tour de force was to bring pieces from Paris museum and show it along rarely seen pieces of Shanghai art deco. Art deco was a global style of art and craft, but it also had it own local variations.

Paris art deco wind screen, influenced by China

The exhibition also highlights the way art and craft in 1920s and 1930s influenced each other. Modern Shanghai was used a lot of western references, but Art deco in Europe was also heavily influenced by Asia and China. The exhibition success is to make this visible.

The exhibition tour de force is to show numerous Shanghai art deco pieces, furniture, lights, cloths and advertising posters. It is very diverse, showing the width and variety of Shanghai art deco production. It also shows rarely scene pieces including real old Shanghai Qipaos and wonderful dragon carpets reminding of the cover of Tintin’s Blue Lotus. It also adds movies including the ones of Ruan Lingyu / 阮玲玉 and literature including 1930s Shanghai author like Mu ShiYing / 穆時英 and Shi Zhecun / 施蛰存.

The exhibition is located at Bund 33 and will last until February 16th 2025. Tickets are 150 RMB for person, 200 RMB for 2 people. It is a must go for anybody interested in Shanghai history and art deco lovers.

Art Deco, the French-China Connection

Thanks to a recent business trip, I finally had the chance to view the ” Art Deco, the French-China Connection” exhibition in Hong Kong. Opened in early March, it will last until end of June and is worth seeing for Old Shanghai fans visiting Hong Kong.

The exhibition is the result of a very unique cooperation. It’s origin is the major Art Deco exhibition in Paris that took place in 2014 (see post “1925, when art deco dazzled the World” for more details), with a number of major pieces having been brought from Paris. Had this new exhibition been only a short version of the Paris one, it would already have been really interesting, but there much more to see.

famous “meuble a fards” from Ruhlmann, brought from Paris

One of the major and little known Art Deco link between France and China, is the mausoleum statue of Sun Yat Sen in Nanjing. If the purple mountain based mausoleum and the statue are extremely famous in China, few people know that the statue was created by French sculpture Paul Landowski in Boulogne near Paris, before being shipped to China. Landowski was also the creator of another World famous piece, the Christ statue overlooking Rio de Janeiro. (See post: From Boulogne to Nanjing for more details).

French sculptor Paul Landowski, with his Sun Yat Sen statue.

With a France-China Connection theme, Shanghai art deco was also called in, with the help of major Shanghai based collector including Deke Ehr, Patrick Cranley and Tina Kanagaratnam. The original Paris Art Deco exhibition had shown a few photos of Shanghai Art Deco architecture by Leonard & Vesseyre company. Here, the Shanghai part is much larger with great examples of Shanghai Art Deco furniture, as well as fashion and famous art deco advertising posters. Side by side with the ones from Paris, they highlight the similarities between style and fashion in both cities during the same period.

Shanghai Art Deco furniture, with the backdrop of the Shanghai Bund

Many more of those advertising posters from Hong Kong were on display, but the most important contribution to the exhibition is the whole room full of 1920’s and 30’s compact boxes or “necessaires” as they are called in French. These small boxes for ladies to carry make-up became really trendy in this period, and the collection on display is simply amazing thanks to the Liang Yi Museum.

A few of the Art Deco “necessaires” on display

Although the neighborhood of Kowloon Tong is quite far from the center of Hong Kong, the exhibition is definitely worth the trip for anybody interesting in Art Deco and Shanghai.

It is open until 30th June (10:00 to 19:00, closed on Monday), at CityU Exhibition Gallery, 18/F, Lau Ming Wai Academic Building, City University of Hong Kong, 83 Tat Chee Avenue, Kowloon Tong