Alphonse Maria Mucha (24 July 1860 – 14 July 1939) was a Czech Art Nouveau painter and decorative artist best known for his distinct style and his images of women. He produced many paintings, illustrations, advertisements, and designs.
Mucha lived in Czech after moved France in Paris and continued his studies at Académie Julian and Académie Colarossi while also producing magazine and advertising illustrations. Around Christmas 1894, Mucha happened to drop into a print shop where there was a sudden and unexpected demand for a new poster to advertise a play starring Sarah Bernhardt, the most famous actress in Paris, at the Théâtre de la Renaissance on the Boulevard Saint-Martin. Mucha volunteered to produce a lithographed poster within two weeks, and on 1 January 1895, the advertisement for the play Gismonda by Victorien Sardou appeared on the streets of the city. It was an overnight sensation and announced the new artistic style and its creator to the citizens of Paris.[4] Bernhardt was so satisfied with the success of that first poster that she entered into a 6 years contract with Mucha.
One warms to Mucha because he tried so hard to bring art into the lives of the people – his greatest passion – by designing first class posters, advertisements, labels for soap, toothpaste and butter, mosaic panels for municipal swimming pools, crockery, textiles, jewellery (the snake bracelet and ring he designed for Sarah Bernhardt, executed by Fouquet, is perhaps the finest piece of costume jewellery ever created), postage stamps, calendars, letterheads and every conceivable kind of illustrative work. He loved Byzantine icons, collected them and copied them. He despised Art Nouveau, or said he did; not unfairly because his was really a style of its own. Anyone interested in design should study how ingeniously Mucha weaves into a single pattern frame and content, figures and decoration, lettering and picture.
Works by Alphonse Mucha http://alphonsemucha.net
