There was a time—not so very long ago—when Art Deco was unfashionable. Its gleaming chrome, geometric flourishes, and sunburst motifs were seen as relics of a naïve, pre-war optimism. Post-war modernism had little patience for glamour. Clean lines were acceptable; ornament was not.

It was the debris of a parents' generation—a style that had burned brightly between the wars and then vanished under the functional, unadorned weight of post-WWII International Style. What remained were buildings, trinkets, cinemas, teapots—objects without a coherent story.

In the 1950s and early 1960s, Victorian design was only just beginning to be reassessed. The decorative arts of the 1920s and 30s, meanwhile, were largely dismissed as frivolous—too luxurious, too theatrical, too indulgent for a world rebuilding itself through austerity and functionalism.

And then, in 1968, a young English art historian named Bevis Hillier quietly changed the conversation.

Architect of Art Deco’s Revival

Bevis Hillier (b. 1940) is an Oxford-educated historian and journalist whose 1968 work, ‘Art Deco of the 20s and 30s’, codified the movement for the modern world. His distinguished career at The Times, The Connoisseur, The Spectator, and the Los Angeles Times bridged journalism and academia, but his most enduring legacy remains his role as the “godfather” of Art Deco—elevating it from a nameless orphan to something intellectually legitimate.

The Book That Gave Art Deco Its Voice

Hillier’s book, ‘Art Deco of the 20s and 30s’, was the first major academic study to treat the style as a serious cultural movement. More importantly, it gave the movement a name that would stick. His intention was clear: to rescue it from the fog of the recent past and grant it the dignity of history.

The term "Art Deco" was buried in the title of the 1925 Paris Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes. It had been whispered in French circles and clipped in a few 1966 newspaper columns. But it was Hillier who consolidated it, framed it, and made it authoritative. Before that, the style had been loosely referred to as “Moderne” or “Jazz Modern.” It had no stable identity.

Naming, as Hillier understood, is an act of preservation.

By defining Art Deco as “the last of the total styles”—a movement that shaped everything from skyscrapers and ocean liners to powder compacts and radios—he restored coherence to what had seemed like scattered aesthetic fragments. He understood that Art Deco wasn't just ornament; it was "domesticated Cubism." It was the 20th century trying to make sense of the machine age through sunbursts, zigzags, and the exotic allure of Tutankhamun’s tomb.

Why Decorative Arts Were Once Dismissed

To understand Hillier’s achievement, we must understand the prejudice he was up against.

For much of the 20th century, “decorative” was a diminutive word. Fine art was revered; applied art was secondary. Ornament was suspect. Serious scholarship gravitated toward movements that rejected embellishment.

If it wasn't a canvas or a sculpture, it wasn't "High Art." Hillier challenged this snobbery. He saw that a Bakelite radio or a Clarice Cliff teapot told a deeper story about human aspiration than a cold, functional concrete slab ever could.

Art Deco, however, embraced both machine-age modernity and sensual material richness. combined reinforced concrete with jade and ivory, streamlined locomotives with beaded evening gowns. It drew from Cubism, the Vienna Secession, Egyptian revival motifs, Ballets Russes costumes, and machine-age optimism. It was modernism dressed for an evening out.

That hybridity confused critics. Was it progressive or nostalgic? Luxurious or industrial?

Hillier argued it was both—and that this tension made it culturally important. His scholarship reframed Art Deco not merely as surface decoration, but as a mirror of its era—reflecting the contradictions of the time: the exuberance of the 1920s, the sharp-edged austerity of the 1930s, and a society negotiating the tension between ornament and efficiency.

The 1971 Minneapolis Milestone

If the book was the spark, Hillier’s 1971 exhibition at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts was the wildfire.

In a bold move for the time, Hillier insisted on a high-low mix. He displayed exquisite Jacques Ruhlmann furniture and Lalique glass alongside mass-produced plastic candlesticks and book jackets. He wanted the world to see that Art Deco wasn't just for the elite in Paris; it was the visual language of the modern world.

This curatorial decision was radical. It dissolved the artificial hierarchy between luxury craftsmanship and everyday design. It told visitors that the story of a century could be found just as easily in a cinema façade as in a museum vitrine.

A Story About Memory, Not Ornament

Hillier once suggested that people are often fascinated by the period just before they were born—a “golden age” they missed. His parents’ generation cherished—a time of luxury, glamour, and an unshakable faith in technological progress. Born in 1940, he looked back at the interwar decades with curiosity and emotional distance.

In doing so, he did something profound: he turned nostalgia into research.

The Chrysler Building, the Empire State Building, Miami’s pastel façades—these were no longer simply glamorous backdrops. They became cultural documents. Through Hillier’s lens, Art Deco was not excess. It was a memory crystallized in steel, glass, and lacquer.

Today, Art Deco is the most revived style in history. We see it in the "Med Deco" of Miami Beach and the high-fashion runways of Paris. We owe this permanence to a young man in 1968 who looked at a despised style and saw beauty, meaning, and a name worth remembering.

Bevis Hillier taught us that history isn't just about wars and treaties; it’s about the shape of the chairs we sit in and the sweep of the buildings that touch the clouds.

What We Can Learn From Hillier

Understanding Hillier’s work changes how you interact with the world. You don’t need to be a historian to find value in his naming of the style. The symmetry of an old cinema or the geometry of a 1930s cabinet reveals a design language that brought order and optimism to its time. Chrome beside ebony, plastic beside precious stone—these combinations mark a society stepping into the machine age without abandoning elegance. And when a Deco building is demolished, you realize something essential: preservation is memory. Hillier later fought to protect landmarks like the Pan-Pacific Auditorium because he knew that once these “ornaments” disappear, the optimism they embodied vanishes with them.

Today, Art Deco is a household term. Its geometry appears in fashion, jewelry, interiors, and architecture. But its survival was not inevitable.

It endured because one young historian believed that elegance deserved scholarship.

Bevis Hillier did more than name a style. He reminded us that even the most glittering surfaces could carry the weight of history.