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50 free Art Deco trivia questions with answers — pop culture quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Art Deco trivia for architecture lovers, design students, Gatsby fans and anyone who has stood under the Chrysler Building's spire or strolled Ocean Drive in Miami Beach. This quiz starts with where the style came from: Auguste Perret's concrete theatre, the Vienna Secession, Cubism, Fauvism and the Ballets Russes, the Tutankhamun craze, and the 1925 Paris exposition that gave the movement its name decades later, courtesy of historian Bevis Hillier. It then covers the buildings and cities: New York's Chrysler and Empire State buildings and Rockefeller Center, Miami Beach's 960 pastel hotels, Napier rebuilt after the 1931 earthquake, Mumbai's UNESCO-listed Marine Drive, London's Hoover Building and Eltham Palace, and Christ the Redeemer above Rio. The designers get their due too: Ruhlmann's furniture, Lalique's glass, Cassandre's Normandie poster, Erte's covers, Lempicka's Bugatti self-portrait, Cartier's jewels and Bakelite radios, ending with the sleek Streamline Moderne of the 1930s. Questions range from easy to expert, and every answer was checked against a reference page and carries its source. If you enjoy this quiz, try our architecture, 1920s and skyscrapers quizzes next.
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Q 01Art Deco takes its name from which 1925 event?
The Paris International Exhibition of Decorative Arts
'Arts decoratifs' was shortened to Art Deco; the term itself was not printed until 1966.
Q 02In which city did Art Deco first appear, in the 1910s just before the First World War?
Paris
It flourished internationally through the 1920s and early 1930s.
Q 03Which historian's 1968 book Art Deco of the 20s and 30s established the term as a stylistic label?
Bevis Hillier
He organised a landmark exhibition at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts in 1971.
Q 04Art Deco's bold geometry has its origins in Cubism and which Austrian movement?
The Vienna Secession
Josef Hoffmann's Stoclet Palace in Brussels, with mosaics by Klimt, was a prototype of the style.
Q 05Which Russian dance company's colourful sets by Leon Bakst helped inspire Art Deco's palette?
The Ballets Russes
The bright colours of Fauvism and the fashions of Paul Poiret were the other early influences.
Q 06The discovery of which pharaoh's tomb fed the ancient-Egyptian motifs of 1920s Art Deco?
Tutankhamun
Designers also borrowed from the Maya, Persia, China, Japan and India.
Q 07Which 1913 Paris venue by Auguste Perret is regarded as the first landmark Art Deco building?
The Theatre des Champs-Elysees
A critic sneered at it as the 'Zeppelin of Avenue Montaigne'; a young Le Corbusier had been a draftsman in Perret's office.
Q 08Which country was not invited to the 1925 Paris exposition because of its role in the First World War?
Germany
The Soviet Union was invited despite France not yet recognising its government.
Q 09Why did the United States decline to take part in the 1925 exposition?
Its Commerce Secretary said America had no modern art
Herbert Hoover's excuse did not stop hundreds of American designers and buyers from visiting.
Q 10Which architect's stark Pavillon de L'Esprit Nouveau at the 1925 exposition foreshadowed modernism?
Le Corbusier
He later wrote a series of articles denouncing the luxurious arts decoratifs style, and modernism eventually won out.
Q 11Which Alsatian furniture designer starred at the 1925 exposition, refusing mass production and using ebony and ivory?
Emile-Jacques Ruhlmann
His Hotel du Collectionneur pavilion drew crowds; even his firm turned to series production during the Depression.
Q 12Which city has the largest concentration of Art Deco architecture in the world?
Miami Beach
Its historic district, designated in 1979, holds 960 buildings, mostly from the Depression to the early 1940s.
Q 13The Ocean Drive Art Deco district in Florida was the setting of which fashion designer's murder in 1997?
Gianni Versace
Q 21Diego Rivera's 30 Rockefeller Plaza mural was destroyed for including a portrait of whom?
Lenin
Man at the Crossroads was commissioned in 1932; Rivera had earlier painted Detroit Industry for Edsel Ford.
Q 22Which mythological figure is Paul Manship's gilded statue in Rockefeller Center's plaza?
Prometheus
Lee Lawrie's Atlas stands on Fifth Avenue; the Christmas tree first went up in December 1933.
Q 23Christ the Redeemer above Rio de Janeiro, the largest Art Deco sculpture, was made by which sculptor?
Paul Landowski
The reinforced concrete and soapstone figure, 30 metres tall, was built between 1922 and 1931 on Corcovado.
He was shot on the steps of his Ocean Drive mansion by Andrew Cunanan.
Q 14Which New Zealand city was rebuilt in Art Deco style after a 1931 earthquake levelled it?
Napier
It holds the Tremains Art Deco Weekend every February; the Hawke's Bay quake struck on 3 February 1931.
Q 15Which Indian city's Victorian and Art Deco ensemble was made a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2018?
Mumbai
Its Marine Drive apartment blocks and cinemas like the Regal and Eros face the Oval Maidan.
Q 16Who designed the Chrysler Building?
William Van Alen
Walter Chrysler funded it personally as an investment for his children, not as a corporate HQ.
Q 17The Chrysler Building's 31st-floor ornaments are replicas of what?
1929 car radiator caps
Eagles adorn the 61st floor as a nod to America's national bird.
Q 18The Chrysler Building's crown was the first American use of which German-developed material?
Nirosta stainless steel
Krupp's 18-8 alloy contains 18% chromium and 8% nickel.
Q 19How long did the Chrysler Building hold the title of world's tallest building?
11 months
It was also the world's first supertall skyscraper; the Empire State Building overtook it in 1931.
Q 20Who designed the interiors of Radio City Music Hall, mixing chrome, aluminium and Bakelite?
Donald Deskey
The 'Showplace of the Nation' opened on 27 December 1932 as part of Rockefeller Center.
Q 24What was the sleeker 1930s offshoot of Art Deco, with curving forms and smooth surfaces, called?
Streamline Moderne
In France it was the 'style paquebot', inspired by the ocean liner Normandie.
Q 25Which 1933 car was one of the first production vehicles in the Streamline style?
Chrysler Airflow
Streamlining stayed in car design well after the Second World War.
Q 26Which French ocean liner, launched in 1932, was the most famous floating example of Art Deco?
Normandie
Its dining room was lit by twelve pillars of Lalique crystal.
Q 27Cassandre's celebrated 1935 poster depicted which French liner head-on?
Normandie
He also designed the Yves Saint Laurent logo and the Peignot and Bifur typefaces.
Q 28Bakelite, the early plastic beloved of Art Deco designers, was invented in 1907 by whom?
Leo Baekeland
Made in Yonkers, New York, it was the world's first commercial synthetic plastic.
Q 29Tamara de Lempicka's famous 1929 self-portrait shows her at the wheel of which car?
A Bugatti
Painted for the cover of Die Dame, it was a fiction: she actually drove a small yellow Renault, which was stolen one night.
Q 30The Russian-born designer Erte took his pseudonym from what?
The French pronunciation of his initials
Romain de Tirtoff signed his first big contract with Harper's Bazaar in 1915.