AT THE RYTHM OF JAZZ

Penagos, Bartolozzi, Rikardo and Sáenz de Tejada reveal with their drawings the keys of the most glamorous style of the 20th century in this exhibition of the ABC Museum within the framework of Madrid Design Festival 2018.

Joséphine Baker swings her hips just wearing a banana skirt. It is scandalous. Anything exotic thing coming from Africa, Central America or the East, sells. Simultaneously, it exits a fascination with machines. They dance at the rhythm of jazz while The New York Times talks about «the return of the music of the “savages”». We are in 1925. And the nights are long. Put all these ingredients in a cocktail shaker -Baker, Picasso, Diághilev… and any pharaoh-, add a piece of historical styles. Shake it and you will obtain art déco. The style that reigned from 1910 to 1935 and that was born the save France.

The culmination of this style took place with the inauguration of the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts in Paris, in April of 1925. It is the establishment of a style, art déco, which embraces tradition, modernity, luxury and functionality. It is the triumph of Émile-Jacques Ruhlmann, Jacques Doucet and Robert Mallet-Stevens furniture; René Lalique glass or Louis Cartier jewelry. However, it is also the work of Spanish illustrators such as Penagos, Bartolozzi, Rikardo, Santonja, Romley, Loygorri or Sáenz de Tejada, who left a large legacy in both ABC and Blanco y Negro journals.  Nowadays, they are part of the ABC Exhibition. These are illustrations that invite you to travel directly to a time marked by elegance, refinement and excess and that can now be witnessed in the same room in the ABC Museum. They wanted to proclaim to the world the French supremacy in the production of luxury goods.