Mucha AM
NAME: Mucha, Alphonse.
ACHIEVEMENTS: Poster art
NICKNAME/ALIAS: Born Mucha, Alfons Maria.
DATE/PLACE OF BIRTH: 24th July 1860, in Ivancice, Moravia, Austrian-Hungarian Empire (now Czech Republic).
DATE/PLACE OF DEATH/AGE AT DEATH: 14th July 1939, in Prague, Czechoslovakia (now Czech Republic). Aged 79.
DISCIPLINE: Painter.
FIELD: Art.
LANGUAGE: Czech, German, French.
PARENTS: Father: Andreas Mucha; Mother: Amalia Mala.
SIBLINGS: 2 sisters, Anna and Angela.
SPOUSE: Maruska.
CHILDREN: 1 son, Jiri Mucha and ?
EDUCATION: Czech school, Ivancice; Grammar school, Brno.
MAJOR WORK: Theatrical posters, posters for commercial advertising.
LIFE AND TIMES:
In 1879, Mucha got a job painting scenery for a Viennese firm, but the work finished when the Ringtheater burned down two years later. For a while, he earned a living as an itinerant artist and decorator and then he found a patron, Count Khuen, who paid for him to study art at the Munich Academy.
In 1887, Mucha went to Paris, where he began studying at the Academie Julian and the Academie Colarossi. In his spare time he earned a living drawing figures for children's publications and doing illustrations for journals such as ‘Le Petit Parisien Illustre’.
He was rescued from poverty after a visit from Henri Bourrelier, who worked for the publisher Armand Colin and was always scouting for new talent.
Mucha got work illustrating a book of fairy tales, ‘Les Contes des Grandmeres’ by
Xavier Marmier and some of his illustrations were later shown, to some acclaim, at the Paris Salon, the official gallery for Parisian artists. He was then commissioned to illustrate an epic poem, ‘The Adamites’, by a publisher in Prague.
He began to work for more journals, including the ‘Costume au Theatre’, in which he reproduced the set designs and costumes from current plays. He was influenced at this time by the designs of <influenced by> William Morris*, by the Symbolists, and
above all by the newly discovered Japanese art on view at the Paris Exhibition in 1889.
Among his friends was the artist <a pal of> Gauguin*, who sat as a model for one of Mucha's illustrations. At Christmas in 1894, Mucha received a panic call from the manager of the Lemercier printing works. One of Lemercier's most important clients, the Theatre de la Renaissance, needed a poster to be ready by New Year’s Day.
The poster was to advertise the appearance of the actress Sarah <was designer to> Bernhardt* in a new play, ‘Gismonda’ by Victorien Sardou.
Mucha, who had never painted a poster before, produced a work that caused a sensation in Paris society. Sardou's play had a Byzantine setting and Mucha's design was like a mosaic of silk, gold and precious stones.
The near life-size illustration of Bernhardt was painted in delicate colours which were the complete opposite of the reds and vermilions that were commonly used for posters. The work brought instant fame, Bernhardt was delighted and contracted Mucha as her stylist, to design her costumes and sets, sketch her jewellery and decide on her hairstyles.
In 1896, when Bernhardt played in ‘La Dame aux Camellias’ in contemporary style, Mucha worked on the entire production and his designs became a great influence on contemporary fashion.
Mucha was now in constant demand and his posters, mostly in the Art Nouveau style, became collectors' items. He moved to a new studio where he lived in luxury, in a room hung with Chinese silks and Tibetan embroidery, with Persian carpets and bearskins on the floor.
One of Mucha’s closest friends in Paris was playwright <a pal of> Strindberg*, with whom he shared an interest in occultism. In 1897, Mucha held his first exhibition and the two-weekly review ‘La Plume’ published a special 100-page issue dedicated to his work. He took a huge number of commissions, which included designing menu cards for ceremonial state receptions, illustrating magazine covers and teaching in a school set up by the American artist <taught at school of> Whistler*.
Mucha became interested in sculpting and got to know the French sculptor, <a pal of> Rodin*, with whom he made a visit to Prague in 1902. The following year, he went to the US, to try to make better money.
Charles Tiffany, the glass designer and manufacturer, read about Mucha’s arrival in the press and invited him to his workshops and to his home on Long Island. Mucha enjoyed doing large expensive portraits and was a great success with society women, like Mrs George Jay Gould, daughter-in-law of the notorious railway baron, <knew daughter-in-law of> Gould*..
Much to his wife's annoyance, Mucha turned down a request from the steel boss, <refused commission from> CM Schwab*, to paint a decorative panel for his hall, having decided that the commission, although it would be well-paid, was not serious art. At the same time, he agreed to decorate the German Theatre on the corner of Madison Avenue and 59th Street in New York.
While he was in the US, Mucha gave lectures in Chicago at the Art Institute and, always homesick for Czechoslovakia, founded the first American Slav Society. In doing so, he attracted the attention of the millionaire Charles Richard Crane.
Crane had links with Eastern Europe and was a friend of <a pal of> Tomas Masaryk*, who later became the first president of an independent Czechoslovakia. Mucha painted Crane's daughter, then Crane agreed to finance a series of huge murals depicting the history of the Slav races.
Between 1910 and 1912, Mucha, a supporter of the ideal of pan-Slavism, made several study tours of Slav countries for the project. The twenty monumental murals, called ‘The Slav Epic’, were donated by Mucha to the city of Prague and, after 1922, Mucha lived for the rest of his life in Czechoslovakia.
ASSESSMENT: Mucha is one of the most notable designers of the Art Nouveau period and is particularly remembered for his posters of idealised female forms.
EXTRA CONNECTIONS: None
ONELINER: Alphonse Mucha, Art Nouveau designer
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Duane, O B, Mucha, Brockhampton Press, London, 1996.
Mucha, Jiri, Alphonse Mucha, His Life and Art, Heinemann, London, 1966.