Art Nouveau vs Art Deco Lighting, Plus Bauhaus and Brutalist

Art nouveau lighting (early 1890s to the First World War) follows nature: flowers, tendrils and whiplash curves in painted or cameo glass. Art deco (the 1920s and 1930s) is geometric, with sunburst and machine-age forms in chrome, silvered brass, bronze and etched glass. Bauhaus lamps strip both to plain geometry; Streamline adds speed lines.

How do you tell the eras apart?

Start with dates and one question: does the lamp imitate a plant, or a machine? The table sets out each era with a museum example you can look up.

What does an art nouveau lamp look like?

Like a plant or a landscape turned into glass. The V&A says art nouveau took “its inspiration from the natural world.” Gallé’s table lamp of about 1900 at LACMA is made of glass and metal, and a 1912 table lamp by the Daum factory of Nancy, now in the Museum of Applied Arts in Budapest, carries a painted waterside landscape on both shade and base. The Metropolitan Museum’s lamp by Pierre-Adrien Dalpayrat, about 1900 to 1902, pairs glass with glazed stoneware and bronze.

On a lamp for sale, the signs are painted or carved glass shades with flowers or scenery, bronze bases shaped like stems or figures, and curves rather than straight edges.

Art nouveau and brutalist lamps

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Pre-owned lamps in this slot are period pieces or later ones in the style; check the date claim and ask for photos of any signature.

What does an art deco lamp look like?

Geometric, and proud of its materials. The V&A counts art deco among the first global design movements, and the 1925 Paris exhibition of decorative and industrial arts, Cooper Hewitt notes, “established Paris as the city to sell the new design and aesthetic of Art Deco.”

Lighting at that exhibition shows the change. Edgar Brandt displayed his serpent lamps, called Temptation, on his own stand; the National Gallery of Victoria’s example pairs a patinated bronze snake with an etched glass shade by Verrerie de Nancy, and says the lamps were produced between 1920 and 1926. In the United States, the Met’s 1927 table lamp by Donald Deskey is chrome-plated metal and glass, and its 1928 lamp by Walter von Nessen is silvered brass with a paper shade.

Where nouveau curves, deco turns geometric. The Art Story points to the sunburst pattern on the Chrysler Building crown as a signature American deco motif. On a lamp, look for geometric bases and shades, frosted or etched glass, and chrome, nickel or silvered metal. Our art deco table and floor lamp guide and chandelier guide cover each fixture type.

Art deco lamps

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Where do Tiffany lamps fit?

Between the two, and closer to art nouveau. Tiffany’s studios introduced leaded-glass shades in 1898, according to the Neustadt Collection, and their dragonflies, lilies and wisteria follow nature in the nouveau way. The Delaware Art Museum dates the Tiffany Studios name from 1902 to 1932, so production ran on into the deco years, which is why a leaded lamp can carry a 1920s date without being art deco. Our Tiffany-style lamp guide covers them in full.

Where does the Bauhaus fit?

Beside art deco, in the same years, but without the luxury. The V&A’s MT8 table lamp was designed by Wilhelm Wagenfeld soon after he joined the Bauhaus metal workshop in Weimar in 1923, and the first lamps were made in the spring of 1924. It is nickel-plated brass with a milky glass dome on a plain column.

The V&A notes that the lamp was made under license by Schwintzer & Graff of Berlin from 1928, and that “a version of this lamp is still in production today.” A new one is a licensed reissue; an early one is a museum-level rarity.

What is Streamline Moderne?

The 1930s turn of art deco toward speed. Cooper Hewitt says streamlining emphasized “speed and motion” and became recognizable by “bullet shaping, speed lines, and wings,” borrowed from ships and trains. In lamps, look for rounded horizontal forms with parallel chrome bands.

And brutalist lighting?

A later and looser label. Sellers use “brutalist” for heavy, textured metal lamps and chandeliers, borrowing the word from Brutalist architecture. We found no museum definition of brutalist lighting, so treat the word as a description, not a date. Ask for the maker and the year, as auction houses record them: Sotheby’s, for example, catalogs a Paul Evans room divider of 1967 as “welded and patinated steel,” signed and dated in the weld.

For the next era, see mid-century modern lighting. For Tiffany and leaded glass, see real Tiffany or Tiffany-style. Back to the art deco lighting guide.