The name of Alphonse Mucha is inextricably linked with the evolution of Art Nouveau. Born in rural Moravia in 1860, Mucha found fame in Paris when a chance commission for a poster for the actress Sarah Benhardt led to the creation of his first poster image, Gismonda. ’Le style Mucha’ was launched and Mucha’s posters, with their sinuous lines, pastel colours and decorative motifs, were to become fin-de-siecle icons.

The name of Alphonse Mucha is inextricably linked with the evolution of Art Nouveau. Born in rural Moravia in 1860, Mucha found fame in Paris when a chance commission for a poster for the actress Sarah Benhardt led to the creation of his first poster image, Gismonda. ’Le style Mucha’ was launched and Mucha’s posters, with their sinuous lines, pastel colours and decorative motifs, were to become fin-de-siecle icons.

But Mucha was much more than just a poster artist. His enthusiasm for the new encompassed architecture and interior design, photography, books, jewellery and sculpture, projects for furniture and tableware. His fresh and arresting visual idiom, expressed in the many different objects he designed, established a decorative repertoire with universal appeal.

Mucha believed that art influenced all aspects of human life, and his message of peace and harmony links beauty to a moral goodness. This idealistic philosophy, implicit in his decorative works, is explicit in his later creations- historical paintings, allegorical and symbolist scenes. This book introduces this as yet undiscovered aspect of Mucha’s work, as well as reproducing Mucha’s bestloved images - all in magnificent colour.

ALPHONSE MUCHA:

PREFACE by The Mucha Foundation

A COMPLETE VISION by Petr Wittlich

THE MESSAGE AND THE MAN by Ronald F. Lipp

MAITRE DE L’AFFICHE

DECORATIVE PANELS by Petr Wittlich

BREAKTHROUGH IN PARIS

PARISIAN POSTERS by Petr Wittlich

MUCHA AND SARAH by Victor Arwas

DESIGNS FOR LA BELLE EPOQUE

DOCUMENT5 DECORATIFS by Petr Wittlich

MUCHA AND FOUQUET

RETURN TO BOHEMIA

CZECH POSTERS by Petr Wittlich

THE LORD MAYOR’S HALL, OBECNI DUM

PAINTINGS by Petr Wittlich

PHOTOGRAPHS

PHOTOGRAPHS IN THE STUDIO by Petr Wittlich

THE LEGACY OF MUCHA’S PHOTOGRAPHS by Jan MIcoch

DRAWINGS AND PASTELS by Petr Wittlich

THE SLAV EPIC by Anna Dvorak

BIOGRAPHY

INDEX