1920–1938
Czech Art Deco
A new state, furnishing itself
Czechoslovakia was created in 1918 and spent the interwar years furnishing itself. Art Deco arrived as the style of a modern republic — geometric, new, and deliberately unlike the Habsburg historicism it replaced — and the result is one of the most coherent national versions of the style.
The strength is in materials: Czech glass, already the region's export, took to Deco geometry immediately; ceramics and furniture followed; and Prague's architecture carried the vocabulary at a scale no other new state attempted.
History
The 1920s are the founding phase, with glass and ceramics leading and the state as the main client.
The 1930s narrow into smaller domestic objects before the occupation ends the market in 1938.
What to look for
Deco geometry executed in glass or ceramic rather than wood, a Czech maker's mark, and a finish that survives better than the furniture of the same date.
Searches for this entry are still being collected.