Art Deco Fair at Eltham Palace

I can’t get enough of Pre-Raphaelite art. Or maybe it is the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood’s unrelenting pursuit of beauty and sensuality, and their pleasure in all things decadent – with a dash of addiction and paranoia thrown in for good measure – that is so intoxicating.

In the 1860s, in the glory days of what is now known as the Aesthetic Movement, Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s set congregated in Tudor House, Chelsea, like bees around honey. They painted a bevy of flame-haired women, some pale-faced and consumptive, with an unconventional beauty that was enticingly out of reach, and others who were riper and earthier, and ready to drop their skirts for a smile from one of the Brotherhood.

Not everyone was a big fan of the style, however. Punch cartoonist George du Maurier satirized such heedless pursuit of pleasure. He found the movement’s penchant for blue-and-white china, and Japanese screens and ceramics, to be especially worthy of ridicule. He criticized their hedonistic love of excess, and thought them all nothing more than pretty dandies, interested only in pleasure, style and sensuality.

The Royal Academy, too, was disdainful of the Brotherhood’s art and their exploits. But despite the Academy’s ambivalence, Pre-Raphaelite art, and the Aesthetic Movement that followed, are now taken as precursors to Art Nouveau and Art Deco styles.

Given the interest in Tate Britain’s upcoming survey of Pre-Raphaelite art this autumn, we are sure to see art, fashion and fairs inspired by all things Art Deco. One such fair is English Heritage’s Art Deco Fair in Eltham Palace this month. Over twenty-five stalls will feature jewellery, furniture, and objet d’art in the 1930s style, some harking back to fin de siècle Art Nouveau vintage gear.

Says Kelly Wood, events manager for English Heritage, London, ‘The event will offer visitors a fantastic opportunity to browse and buy original 1930s pieces – and will also appeal to those with an interest in vintage.’

If that’s not enough for you, the venue, originally a medieval palace where you could have done your business in a gold-plated bathroom, where there are sleeping chambers for the family lemur, and fully 19 acres of gardens, is one of the juiciest examples of Art Deco architecture in England. The current structure was built on the remains of the childhood home of Henry VIII, so think excess and opulence all the way.

At the Eltham Fair, expect to see Art Deco-inspired ware that will recreate the glamour and elegance of the breathless years between the two world wars. But with a linear symmetry that was more in tune with modernism than with the lush curves of Art Nouveau. Look out for jewellery made of faux stones, overblown colour, circles and triangles, flora and fauna, and all round general decadence.

Art Deco Fair
Eltham Palace
Greenwich
SE9 5QE

Saturday 12 and Sunday 13 May 2012, 10am-5pm

Prices: Adult: £9.60/ Concession: £8.60/ Child: £5.80/