About

Mucha, Alphonse

(1860-1939) Born in Moravia, in present-day Czech Republic, Alphonse Marie Mucha's style expemplified the Parisian Art Nouveau movement. His contemporaries included Aubrey Beardsley, Gustav Klimt, and Louis Comfort Tiffany, the US glassmaker. Mouse, Kelley, and Bob Masse are not the only poster artists to have drawn from his work.
image from Ragnarok Press

Mucha came to fame through his association with Sarah Bernhardt, the greatest actress of her generation. His first poster for her was Gismonda. According to the story (?legend) Bernhardt needed a poster done overnight, and only Mucha, a relative unknown at the time, was available at Imprimeries Champenois. Although unfinished, Bernhardt loved it, and hired Mucha to do a series of posters for her. Mucha is so identified with art Nouveau that it has often been referred to as "le Style Mucha".

Mucha himself viewed his poster work as commercial and unimportant. In his later years he devoted himself to a series of paintings called "The Slav Epic"

Mucha fell into relative obscurity, and it was the artists of the psychedelic era that renewed interest in his work.

His work now commands large sums at auction, perhaps second only to Toulouse-Lautrec for this period.

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