Spring 1925 saw the opening in Paris of the Exposition des arts décoratifs et industriels modernes, an international exhibition that aimed to redesign and trace contemporary style. The result was a celebration and synthesis of the many different facets of the expressive system we refer to as Art Déco.

One hundred years after this event, Palazzo Reale is hosting until June 25, 2025 “Art Déco. The Triumph of Modernity” curated by Valerio Terraroli, an exhibition whose approximately 250 works provide the public with, in the words of the curator, “not only the aesthetic magnificence of an era that was able to redefine the very concept of modernity, but also its symbolic value as the perfect synthesis between traditional craftsmanship and technological innovation. In a time marked by fragilities and contradictions, Art Déco emerges as an expression of a universal quest for harmony and refinement, capable of transcending geographical boundaries and artistic disciplines”.

This was a decade, the 1920s, in which the decorative arts became the protagonists of everyday life, in the creative ferment of European cities, from Paris to Vienna, from Prague to Milan. The curatorial discourse, also starting from the fundamental studies on Art Déco by Rossana Bossaglia, whose centenary of birth falls this year, traces precise space-time coordinates to chronicle this trend with all its contradictions and peculiarities.

The trajectory of Art Déco reached its peak precisely with the Paris exhibition, and its decline in Europe can be placed in the early 1930s with the birth of what Terraroli calls the “Novecento style.” The geographical context is mainly related to France and Italy, with special mention of Austrian Art Déco, especially to the work of Dagobert Peche. On the threshold of the 1930s, Art Déco style landed in the United States, leaving an everlasting mark with two of the most iconic architectures of the twentieth century, the Chrysler Building (1928) and the Empire State Building (1931).

The exhibition begins with a section focusing on the forerunners of the new style, with works created between 1919 and 1923 by artists such as Mario Cavaglieri, Anselmo Bucci, Adolfo Wildt, Galileo Chini, Ivan Meštrović and Libero Andreotti, and continues with an account of the first two International Biennales of Decorative Arts that took place in 1923 and 1925 at the Villa Reale in Monza under the leadership of artistic director Guido Marangoni (anticipating the founding of the Milan Triennale, which would move from 1933 to Milan's Palazzo dell'Arte designed by Giovanni Muzio).

The works and crafts exhibited in the Monza events, show the strength of Italian creativity also exported in the national pavilion presented at the 1925 Paris Exposition: the fine glass vases by Vittorio Zecchin for Cappellin Venini & C., the silverware by Renato Brozzi, the sculptures by Adolfo Wildt, and the ceramics by Galileo Chini and Gio Ponti were celebrated by awarding the Grand Prix to all of them.

More specifically, the work of Gio Ponti, at that time directing the renewal in majolica production for Richard-Ginori, is especially significant because Ponti had caught the desires of the decorative taste that was increasingly moving away from the stylistic features of Art Nouveau. Among the ceramics that got him the prize in Paris were the series of plates, vases and urns with the theme “Le mie donne” (1924),  “La passeggiata archeologica” (1924-1925), and “Prospettica”(1925).

The role of Gio Ponti is central to the exhibition subject, just because he naturally includes the motifs of the Déco taste in his work of those years, from the resumption of the neoclassical figure that, typical of the Milanese trend, becomes the protagonist of the Italian scene, to the Mannerist and Rococo appeal, but also to folklore as in the series of the Tired Pilgrim (1925-1928). On the one hand, then, the almost onirical evocation of the world of classicism and its myths, with hunting scenes, Venuses, sirens and architecture; on the other hand, the opulence of the late sixteenth century with architectural elements and fantasies that constitute, as Terraroli says, one of the highest and most conscious points of Italian Déco. 

Among the most striking works in the exhibition is definitely the project that Ponti developed with Tommaso Buzzi for the Foreign Ministry's commission of a monumental centerpiece for the Italian Embassies, made in white porcelain on the models of sculptor Italo Griselli and decorated in agate-tipped gold by Elena Diana

Many souls co-existed in the multifaceted, iridescent and refined stylistic alphabet of Art Déco, which was a voice for the quirks of everyday life and the trends of society in that decade, marked by prosperity and experimentation, but also by economic and political tensions that would lead to the 1929 crisis and the rise of authoritarian regimes in several European countries.

The exhibition is therefore framed by presenting the themes that inspired some of the most original creations of that epoch: nature and domesticated wild animals, such as the vulture, chimpanzees and baboons by Sirio Tofanari and Alfredo Biagini, and the fish in René Lalique's green glass vase; the D'Annunzian exoticisms of the Vittoriale artifacts, and the inspirations derived from the colonialist vision of the African world, but also of the perturbing allure of the Far East and the love of antiquity that went hand in hand with the archaeological discoveries of the time, such as the discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb (1922).

The final room of the exhibition, after a whirlwind of ceramics, precious stones, and crafted glass, enchanting the visitor with their originality and preciousness as in an Art Déco wunderkammer, marks an abrupt break from the imaginative and seductive joie de vivre style, with some pieces from the 1930s. The following decade, in fact, would see the disappearance of meticulous decoration in favor of a plastic monumentalism that characterizes the ceramics on display, all coated in red glaze: the globular vases by Guido Andlovitz, the bottle- and amphora-shaped vases by Gio Ponti and Giovanni Gariboldi, and the "Grande Sirena" (1939) by Angelo Biancini.

Throughout the itinerary, in the layout curated by Storyville, visitors will encounter multimedia installations, photographs, reproductions and projections of vintage images that allow them to fully immerse themselves in the exhibition narrative. And if curiosity about the link between Art Déco and Italy, and especially with the city of Milan, was not exhausted by the works on display, a map of Art Déco architecture has also been created to be intercepted around the city, a real treasure hunt.

Opening image: Exhibition view “Art Déco. Il trionfo della modernità” curated by Valerio Terraroli, 2025, Palazzo Reale, Milan, Italy. Photo © Carlotta Coppo. Courtesy Palazzo Reale