Alphonse Mucha
Alphonse Mucha (or Alfons Maria Mucha) was a Czech artist from 1860 to 1939. Mucha was responsible, and much loved, for starting the Art Nouveau movement. He worked in a variety of mediums but oddly enough, is most remembered for his advertising posters.
Mucha was born in Moravia in the present-day Czech Republic. He lived from 1860 to 1939; a time when the art world started changing rapidly. He had always drawn as a boy, and his earliest work was painting portraits, decorative work, and theater scenery. After moving to France, in 1887, Mucha continued to do illustrations for advertisements and magazines.
Mucha achieved fame in late 1894/early 1895 after creating a theater poster for a play, Gismonda, featuring the most famous actress in Paris at the time, Sarah Bernhardt. It was so well-received that he worked for Bernhardt to create posters for his performances for an additional six years. His distinct style was copied by many artists. What was initially known as the Mucha Style became the Art Nouveau movement.
Interestingly, Mucha himself tried to disassociate from the Art Nouveau movement. He thought that art should elevate the spirit and was upset that his most famous pieces were ones he made for commercial purposes. He also wanted to give back to the people from his homeland. To do that, Mucha painted a large-scale series of paintings about the history of the Slavic people known as “The Slav Epic.” In 1928, Mucha gave these paintings to the city of Prague where they are today.
Due to his fame as a Czech artist of Czech and Jewish heritage (who was proud of his roots), just before the onset of WWII, Alphonse Mucha was arrested by the Gestapo and interrogated when he contracted pneumonia. Although he was released, Mucha died soon after in 1939 at 78 years old.
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