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Art Deco: Style and Design (Autumn 2025)
Online course
+44 (0)20 7942 2000
Our courses are built using the latest Microsoft software. Tune in to expert lectures live or catch up on demand. Join discussions and continue your learning with downloadable handouts and presentations. Find out more >>
Discover the delights of Art Deco, the most distinctive and elegant of international, inter-war styles. Influenced by a wide range of global influences, it embraced both the precious and the mass-produced and epitomised glamour and modernity.
Learn from our world-class experts wherever you are, whenever suits you: watch lectures live or view the recording later in your own time. You can experience the full breadth and depth of the V&A's collections with 10 hours of study over 5 weeks. Learn at your own pace: lecture recordings and study materials, lecture notes, copies of the presentations, and additional study materials are available in our secure Microsoft Teams environment for 5 weeks after the course ends, so you'll never miss a thing. And finally, join the conversation: share your perspective with your fellow students, and support each other in your further enquiries outside of class time.
Learn from our world-class experts wherever you are, whenever suits you: watch lectures live or view the recording later in your own time. You can experience the full breadth and depth of the V&A's collections with 10 hours of study over 5 weeks. Learn at your own pace: lecture recordings and study materials, lecture notes, copies of the presentations, and additional study materials are available in our secure Microsoft Teams environment for 5 weeks after the course ends, so you'll never miss a thing. And finally, join the conversation: share your perspective with your fellow students, and support each other in your further enquiries outside of class time.
V&A Academy Course Leader
Christine Lalumia
Christine Lalumia lectures and writes on design, art and garden histories with a keen interest in cultural context. A consultant lecturer at Sotheby’s Institute of Art, she was deputy director of The Museum of the Home for 21 years.
I love the fact you can participate from home. The presentation, speakers and subject matter are always fascinating and excellent. I have already booked onto my next V&A course online. Previous online course student
Course overview
Join us on this 5 week Art Deco course! Distinctive and intriguing, Art Deco began as a luxury style in Paris in the early years of the 20th century, creating exclusive handmade goods for wealthy connoisseurs which featured exquisite craftsmanship and rare materials. But within decades and in response to a rapidly changing society during the inter-war years, Deco became what was, in effect, a ‘set of international styles’ expressing modernity and aimed at a wide range of consumers from all walks of life.
We will explore the diverse sources and influences on Deco design, including a growing interest in ancient Egyptian, Aztec and Mayan cultures and in the arts of Africa and Japan. The use of ‘exotic’ and precious materials will be contrasted with an increasing embrace of the nascent machine aesthetic, which used ‘new’ materials like aluminium, Bakelite and chrome.
This course considers key figures, designers and tastemakers such as Emile-Jacques Ruhlmann, Eileen Gray, Paul Poiret, Jean Dunand, Jean Michel-Frank, and Rene Lalique, and themes including exhibitions, skyscrapers, ‘exoticism’ and the influence of Hollywood films.
V&A Academy Online. A learning environment you can trust.
Our courses are built using the latest Microsoft software. Tune in to expert lectures live or catch up on demand. Join discussions and continue your learning with downloadable handouts and presentations. Find out more >>
Enrol now
Online course: Art Deco: Style and Design (Autumn 2025)
30 October 2025 - 27 November 2025
£125.00
Need help enrolling? Talk to the admissions team:
+44 (0)20 7942 2000
Open 10.00 - 13.00, Monday to Sunday (closed 24-26 December)
Related events
Header image: 'Incantation'. Fashion plate (1 of 40) after by George Barbier, colour process engraving, Falbalas et Fanfreluches. Almanach des modes..., Paris, 1922. Museum Nr. E.653-1954