Alphonse Mucha
Who
Czech painter and graphic artist whose Paris posters of the 1890s defined Art Nouveau so completely that the French called it "le style Mucha". Spent his last two decades on the Slav Epic, twenty enormous history paintings given to the city of Prague.
Why they matter
The Mucha woman - haloed, draped, framed in mosaic and flowers - is the template for a century of commercial illustration, from cigarette papers to 1960s concert posters to manga.
What to buy
Originals: Mucha's posters and decorative panels were colour lithographs printed by Champenois in Paris in large runs, and period impressions are genuinely collectible: the decorative panels start in the low thousands, the Bernhardt theatre posters go much higher. Swann's poster sales are the place to learn them. The market is full of later reprints and modern reproductions; "original lithograph" on eBay usually means neither. Prints: because the originals were themselves prints, a good modern reproduction is close to the real experience. Books: Taschen and the Mucha Foundation's own publications.
Notes
The Mucha Foundation, run by the family, holds the largest collection and an online gallery.
Story
On 26 December 1894, Mucha was alone in a Paris print shop correcting proofs as a favour when Sarah Bernhardt telephoned demanding a poster for Gismonda by New Year's Day. Everyone else was on holiday. He had never designed a poster. The tall, narrow, pale design he delivered - the actress life-size in Byzantine dress, the lettering built into the arch - was pasted up across Paris on 1 January 1895 and made him famous within the week. Collectors bribed bill-posters or cut the posters off the hoardings at night. Bernhardt gave him a six-year contract to design her posters, sets, costumes and jewellery. He later said he had not been trying to make art of the poster, only to get the job done, and that Art Nouveau was something the critics named afterwards.
Key works
- Gismonda (1894) - poster for Sarah Bernhardt
- Job (1896) - poster for cigarette papers
- The Seasons (1896) - set of four decorative panels
- The Slav Epic (1910-1928) - twenty canvases
In museum collections
- JOB (1896)
MoMA ↗ · Find a print ↗ - Maude Adams (1872–1953) as Joan of Arc (1909)
The Met ↗ · Find a print ↗ - Biscuits Lefèvre-Utile (1896)
National Gallery of Art ↗ · Find a print ↗ - Médée (1898)
MoMA ↗ · Find a print ↗ - Lorenzaccio, Théâtre de la Renaissance (1896)
National Gallery of Art ↗ · Find a print ↗ - Napoleon Views His Rising Star
National Gallery of Art ↗ · Find a print ↗
See the work
Prints
Books
Originals
See also
Browse all 2,101 artists · Open in the directory · Where the work hangs: 22 museums on a map