Greetings to all ICADS members.
This is the second newsletter from the Art Deco
Trust, your current ICADS facilitating society, for 2002. And less than a month
after the last one !!!
MEMBERSHIP
UPDATE
The
name of the society is now “The Art Deco Society, Inc”, not Society Art Deco
Victoria.
The
President, Robin Grow’s email address has changed – it’s now robingrow@ozemail.com.au
PRESERVATION ALERT
Gersil
Kay, Key Contact in Philadelphia, writes –
After
over 20 years of litigation, the Boyd Theatre, the last example of an elegant
French Art Deco style movie palace in Philadelphia, has just been denied
historical status on the grounds that it amounted to an unconstitutional
seizure of private property.”
If
that is the case, no historical building is safe from demolition.
Philadelphia’s
weak Preservation Ordinance only pertains to the exterior, and not to interior
spaces open to the public. The Historical Commission has lost all of its ardent
preservationists, and is now peopled with developers whose sympathies are with
their fellow property owners.
Please
– as many people as possible flood the
newspaper and the Historical Commission with letters protesting this philistine
decision.
The
Editor The
Philadelphia Historical Commission
The
Philadelphia Enquirer 1515
Arch Street, 18th Floor
Fax
215 854 4483 Philadelphia
Fax
215 683 4483
Please
fax or email a copy to Gersil at 215 568 4572, and email a copy to Robert at trust@artdeconapier.com.
COMMUNICATION
Now that email has made the
task of sending out newsletters to members is so simple and so cheap, feel free
to email me anything yo want to circulate to fellow societies to me for inclusion
in the next newsletter.
RESPONSE
I hope that everyone
received the last newsletter and their dues invoice. I quick reply to this
assuring me that they did would be appreciated.
CAPITALISATION
OF ART DECO
Michael Kinerk, Miami Design Preservation League, raised the matter of capitalisation of the name Art Deco at the last ICADS meeting in Tulsa. I fully agree with him on this – nothing irritates me more than seeing Art Deco referred to as art deco. His dissertation on the matter follows. Please take every opportunity to write to the editors
of publications which fail to capitalise and
Friends
I
did some research in our newsroom reference books AND found that Art Deco was
originally listed in Webster's New World Collegiate Dictionary, second edition,
as "art deco." Then in the Third Edition 1997 they began saying it
was okay as "art deco" or "Art Deco." All the while they
capitalized International Style. Meanwhile, they had "arts and
crafts" (movement) lower case in 1997, but in 2000 they changed it to
"Arts and Crafts." There is
no jstification for lower case art deco and upper case Arts and Crafts and
International Style. If art, architecture and design styles are to be
capitalized, then they must be consistently capitalized. They are to be capitalized
in the writer's guides I have used with both Viking and Abrams (America's
foremost art and design book publisher). I am actually shocked that any Art
Deco Society in the world would not want to capitalize Art Deco, the name (by
definition, a proper noun) of the very period in architecture and world history
that we are celebrating and promoting.
The Abrams Writers Guide says: Capitalize all art and design movements. They
give examples. This means capitalize styles such as: Fauvism, Realism,
Photorealism, de Stijl, Cubism, Art Deco, Art Nouveau, Vienna Secession, etc
etc etc.
The New York Times style book and The Miami Herald style books since the 1980s
have specified that Art Deco should be capitalized. In reference to the
Webster's slow-paced adoption of the capitalization trend, apparently this is a
matter of fashion, whim and lack of respect. They simply can't justify
capitalizing International Style and not Art Deco. It's totally illogical since
these are nearly the same thing. In the 1940s they overlap and blend together.
In Webster's second edition, 1978, they properly noted that the name derives
from the 1925 Paris Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et
Industriels Modernes. By third edition, 1997 (for economy of space, or just
lack of interest?) they have deleted this critical reference entirely. For
shame, Webster's.
For these reasons, the International Coalition of Art Deco Societies must
insist on capitalizing Art Deco in all uses. We must set the standard, not
follow others.
Quotes from various style
authorities
AP Style Book
Capitalize the names of widely recognized epochs in anthropology,
archaeology, geology and history: the Bronze Age, the Dark Ages, the Middle
Ages, the Pliocene Epoch.
Chicago Guide to Style:
"Capitalize proper nouns and some adjectives formed from proper
nouns."
Here is an example of the historical trend toward capitalizing Art Deco and the
illogic of style in Webster through the years.
Webster's New World College Dictionary, Second Edition, 1975 art deco, arts and
crafts, International Style
Webster's New World College Dictionary, Third Edition, 1997
art deco (also Art Deco), arts and crafts, International Style
Webster's New World College Dictionary, Fourth Edition, 2000
art deco (also Art Deco), Arts and Crafts, International Style
Soon they will recognize what leading publications and publishers such as New
York Times and Abrams and Viking have recognized since 1970s.
Art Deco is a proper noun, used to describe an historical period or art,
architecture, fashion and design. It was an internationally-known architecture
movement, succeeded and overlapped by International Style. Why is International Style always
capitalized but Art Deco is not? Whim and fashion is the only reason I can
discern.
Michael D. Kinerk
Chairman Miami Design Preservation League
Author & lecturer
NOTE FROM DUNLOP on CHICAGO STYLE GUIDE
Chicago style guide says unless proper name, lower case. however some names are
capitalized, either by tradition or avoid ambiguity, Age of Reason, Jazz Age,
Progressive Era, most periods are lower case, except for proper names and
adjectives, colonial period, romantic, Victorian era, cultural movements and
styles are capitalized if derived from proper nouns, arts and crafts and art
deco needs to be upper to distinguish from other uses of word. if lower, could
be any time, made in camp, if upper refers to a time.
________________________________________________
Art Deco vs. art deco
compiled by Dennis Wilhelm
Using Art Deco (= leading, enlightened publications)
LA Times
Miami Herald
Newsday (New York, NY)
Chicago Tribune
Chattanooga Times/Chattanooga Free Press
The Record (Bergen County, NJ)
Boston Globe
The Sunday Oklahoman
Wales on Sunday (Western Mail and Echo Ltd)
The Toronto Sun
The Christian Science Monitor
The Times (London)
International Herald Tribune (Neuilly-sur-Seine, France)
Miami New Times
Orlando Sentinel Tribune
Using art deco (= stodgy, conservative organizations)
The Associated Press
PR Newswire
Chicago Daily Herald
The Daily News of Los Angeles
The Orange County Register
The Tulsa World
Fort Worth Star Telegram
The Dominion (Wellington, NZ)
The Sunday Star-Times (Auckland, NZ)
The Independent (London)
That’s all for now. I haven’t received details of the World Congress in time for inclusion, but this will follow soon.
Robert McGregor
ICADS
FACILITATOR FAX (64) 6 835
1912 EMAIL trust@artdeconapier.com
