Alphonse Mucha was born in 1860 in Ivančice in Moravia,
which was then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire but is now in the Czech Republic.
In 1878 he applied to the Prague Academy of Fine Arts, but his application was rejected
and in 1880 he traveled to Vienna to work as an apprentice making theatre sets.
Only a year later a fire destroyed the theatre which was the company's main client, and Mucha
returned to Moravia where he tried with limited success to earn a living as an artist.
But he was fortunate enough to be commissioned by Count Eduard Khuen Belasi
to paint murals for his two ancestral castles.
He subsequently became Mucha's patron and paid for numerous
trips to the great art centres of Europe and to study in both Munich and Paris.
But In 1889 Belasi withdrew his financial support.
So now 30 years old, with an urgent need to make a living,
Mucha began creating drawings for the children's magazine Le Petit Français Illustré.
These were reproduced as engravings from Mucha's original drawings
and they demonstrated a natural affinity for complex and compelling narrative illustration.
And in 1893 he was commissioned to produce illustrations for a series of books
titled Scenes and Episodes of German History, written by by Charles Seignobos. These were
created by Mucha as gouache paintings which were then engraved skilfully by Charles Leomine.
Four of these illustrations drew critical attention when
shown at the 1894 Paris Salon of Artists, but the whole undertaking
was so big the series wasn't actually completed until 3 years later in 1897.
Meanwhile Mucha's illustrated edition of Judith Gautier's Memoirs of a White Elephant
was also published, and featured not only pen and ink line illustrations but also
some remarkably detailed engravings, probably by Leomine - but that's speculation on my part.
Most significantly, at the end of 1894 he was commissioned to create a poster
for the immensely popular French actress Sarah Bernhardt in the play Gismonda.
This was a particularly urgent commission, but the 2 metre high poster was conceived,
drawn and printed by the January the first deadline in 1895.
It was a huge success and Bernhardt gave Mucha
a six-year contract to produce others for future productions.
And this professional association greatly enhanced Mucha's profile and reputation,
and the popularity and quality of his ongoing work for Bernhardt quickly
led to a host of other clients eager to have their products advertised along similar lines.
In the years that followed Mucha's posters became
a dominant presence in the streets of Paris and many other European cities,
and many of his most iconic images were created during this prolific period.
Although he had not been the first, and was certainly not
the only one exploring the seductive organic appeal of Art Nouveau design
he quickly became by far its most popular and financially successful exponent.
Throughout this time he worked closely with the prestigious printing firm F. Champenois,
and he entered into a contract with them, which in return for an unspecified but reputedly
spectacularly large income the company would be given the rights to publish all his works.
In collaboration with Champenois Mucha came up with an innovation which would
make both men even wealthier. Mucha created and Champenois printed graphic material with
no direct commercial function but which could be bought for display by ordinary citizens
who couldn't afford original art. And in addition to reproductions to
hang on domestic walls they were also reproduced as postcards and calendars.
The first of these decorative series was The Seasons, published in 1896,
and it was an immediate success.
It was no coincidence that Like Chéret before him and many of his contemporaries
Mucha's images almost exclusively focused on beautiful women,
in his case set within astonishingly complex and aesthetically pleasing flourishes and borders.
And between 1897 and 1902 he created several others, each on a specific theme,
and the popularity of these images quickly came to define Mucha for many across Europe.
They remain arguably his most often reproduced and merchandised images.
Mucha was enthusiastic in his use of photography to capture the poses of his models,
and he frequently used them as the basis for his drawings.
And having created the flawless line work of the figure and the supporting graphics,
colour would then be added in separate print runs, each requiring precise registration.
Mucha didn't confine himself to 2 dimensional expression and in addition to
creating interior and product design in1899 he collaborated with the jeweller Georges Fouquet
to make a bracelet for Sarah Bernhardt in the form of a serpent made of gold and enamel.
His commercial success had also led to an increase in interest in his painted work,
but graphic reproduction remained his predominant means of expression
and In the same year he published the religious portfolio Le Pater.
Only 510 copies of this volume were printed, and Mucha himself considered
Le Pater to be among his greatest creative achievements, and with some justification.
It featured various decorated panels printed in colour
and a series of full page monochrome halftones to illustrate the devotional text.
The exquisite execution and dramatic composition of these images made for a deeply absorbing and
inspirational body of work, which provided a less frivolous counterbalance to his more
commercial output.
His reputation was further enhanced by his presence at theParis Universal Exposition of 1900,
the first grand showcase ofArt Nouveau, and this event gave Mucha an opportunity
to create some large-scale historical murals of scenes from the Balkan regions.
In addition to these he also designed posters and other related print work
for the Austro-Hungarian presence at the exposition,
and this work was instrumental in spreading his reputation to an even wider audience.
The level of his productivity around this time was almost beyond belief, and in the same year he
also published an edition of Anatole France's book Clio, with a series of dramatic narrative colour
full page illustrations in a mannered graphic style quite similar to his poster technique.
I can't find definitive information about these images but unlike the
posters they appear to have been created as watercolours
and printed using offset lithography - but I stress that's just guesswork.
And simultaneously his illustrated edition of Emile Gebhart's Cloches de Noël et de Pâques
was published with every page illustrated and sinuously decorated by Mucha in another
display of perfectly balanced aesthetics. After the success of the 1900 Exposition,
Georges Fouquet asked Mucha to design the interior of his new exclusive jewellery shop in Paris,
and once more he demonstrated just how well his drawn designs
lent themselves to reproduction in 3 dimensions. This work and its use of diverse materials is
rightly considered the to be one of the finest examples of of Art Nouveau interior design.
And although the shop closed in 1923,
most of the original decoration was preserved, and is now on show at Paris's Carnavalet Museum.
Mucha also found time to teach at the Academy Colarossi in Paris,
and in that capacity in 1902 he published his style reference book Documents Decoratifs,
which contained many plates of elaborate
organic motifs and figurative designs which were eagerly scrutinised and emulated by others.
In 1904, Mucha sailed for New York, in the hope of attracting financial backing for a massively
ambitious painting project celebrating the history and culture of the Slavic people.
But he returned to Paris after a couple of months with no takers for his project.
Nevertheless he returned a year later, got married and taught
illustration and design at a number of art schools and academies up to 1910.
During this time he became increasingly determined to find greater success as a painter
and consequently he rejected many of the offers of commercial work which came his way,
although he relented from time to time to create posters and magazine work.
In 1910 Mucha managed to persuade the American entrepreneur Charles Crane
to fund his proposed Slav Epic, but first he had to complete his current project,
the decoration of wall and ceiling panels in the Lord Mayor's Hall in Prague.
And with this obligation fulfilled from 1911 onwards he devoted himself exclusively to the
immense undertaking that would eventually become twenty tempera paintings, featuring
large numbers of figures in complex compositions, and each measuring an incredible 6 by 8 metres.
The series took him almost 17 years to complete,
and when the last painting had been finished in 1928 he immediately donated this remarkable
labour of love to the city of Prague, where it is now on permanent display.
Although he turned 70 in 1930 he continued to be active as an artist throughout the decade,
designing stained glass windows and producing more paintings,
although nothing to equal the Slav Epic.
But in 1939, the German army marched into Prague, and as a known nationalist Mucha
was arrested and interrogated. He was released a few days later but he was by now in poor health.
He contracted pneumonia soon after and died at the age of 78.
Although by the time of his death Mucha and Art Nouveau in general had come to be considered
outdated, in the 1960s many in the hippie movement recycled both his stylistic approach and even
specific images, and this ultimately led to his current level of global mainstream popularity.
Mucha's legacy to the parallel worlds of art and illustration cannot be overstated,
and although it's likely he would be bitterly disappointed to know
it's his commercial graphic work rather than his painting for which he is best remembered,
it seems that despite the changes in tastes and fashion the enduring aesthetic appeal of
these images has become permanently embedded in our collective culture.