'Flappers - Six Women of a Dangerous Generation' - by Judith Mackrell
I recently spied this book in Barnes Noble and thought it looked like a fascinating read. As you probably know at Canonbury Antiques we love all things art deco - there's something about the 1920s which is so appealing to me and particularly how it manifests itself aesthetically, most notably in the art deco bronze figurine.
The 1920s seemed like such an exciting time to be alive - the Jazz age, the roaring twenties - with all the technical and social changes which affected the era and brought about exhilerating change. All fuelled seemingly by buckets of champers. A magnum of Dom Perignon please..
What is a flapper?
"Flappers were a "new breed" of young Western women in the 1920s who wore short skirts, bobbed their hair, listened to jazz, and flaunted their disdain for what was then considered acceptable behavior"Sounds fab. Where can we meet some flappers? (not to be confused with 'slapper'!)The blurb on the inside jacket of the book reads:"By the 1920s, women were on the verge of something huge. Jazz, racy fashions, eyebrowraising new attitudes about art and sex—all of this pointed to a sleek, modern world, one that could shake off the grimness of the Great War and stride into the future in one deft, stylized gesture. The women who defined this age — Josephine Baker, Tallulah Bankhead, Diana Cooper, Nancy Cunard, Zelda Fitzgerald, and Tamara de Lempicka — would presage the sexual revolution by nearly half a century and would shape the role of women for generations to come."It does seem like such a flamboyant and hedonistic time to be alive (unless you were affected by the Great Depression). And it seemed like particularly the girls really knew how to have fun. A whole range of sculpturists and aritsts working out of the epoch - notably DH Chiparus, Ferdiand Preiss, Bruno Zach, Lalique, Max Leverrier, Fayral, Colinet, Joe Descomps to name a few - perfectly captured the female form in the vast array of female figurine bronze statues they produced.
The 1920s version of the idealised female form accentuated the lithe athleticism with elongated limbs and facial features with motifs borrowed from Cubism. Thanks Picasso! The eras fascination with aero-dynamism through the first commercial airflights at the time also greatly influenced the look and feel. We have a range of art deco bronzes on display on our website so please browse to find your perfect flapper. Favourites include the Clarte art deco bronze lamp and the array of stunning biba figurines we have available. If you can't find the right art deco bronze figurine please get in touch and we will source it for you.
Keywords - art deco bronze, flapper, flappers, art deco style, 1920s, DH Chiparus, antique bronzes, art deco figurine
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