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Alphonse Mucha PostersAlphonse Mucha Posters
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Alphonse Mucha (born Alfons Maria Mucha) was the leading Art Nouveau painter and decorative artist. Born in Ivančice in Moravia in 1860, he worked in Vienna and studied in Munich before moving to Paris in 1887, the city with which he is indelibly linked. He continued to study there, at the Academie Julian and the Academie Colarossi, whilst working as a commercial illustrator. In 1894, almost by chance, he received a commission to design the poster for Gismonda, a play starring Sarah Bernhardt at the Theatre de la Renaissance. The actress liked it so much that she gave Mucha a five year contract to produce not only posters but also stage and costume designs. His reputation as a graphic artist grew and he was constantly in demand as a commercial artist; Alphonse Mucha posters were much sought after by the new collectors of commercial graphic art of the fin de siecle. In 1899 Mucha was commissioned by the Austro Hungarian government to decorate the the Bosnia-Herzegovinia Pavilion and other works at the 1900 Paris International Exposition. The French government was so impressed that they awarded him the Legion D'Honneur for his contributions. In 1904 he first travelled to America, and subsequently visited several times, exhibiting his work and teaching at major art schools. His daughter, Jaroslava, was in born in New York in 1909. Mucha returned to Prague in 1910 and began on his major artistic work, the Slav Epic, a history of the Czech and Slavic peoples, which became a series of 20 huge paintings presented to the people in 1928. When Czechoslovakia was founded as an independent state after WWI he designed the new nation's postage stamps and bank notes. The Nazis found Mucha's art decadent (which is ample recommendation in itself). When the Germans invaded Czechoslovakia in the Spring of 1939 he was arrested and questioned by the Gestapo. Mucha never recovered fully from the shock of the interrogation and died on the 14th of July, 1939. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
