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A fabulous tribute to the artist whose stylized poster designs defined Art Nouveau's visual language, and whose influence can be seen everywhere from manga to the Grateful Dead
This volume reappraises the graphic work of Alphonse Mucha (1860-1939) and explores its influence on graphic art since the 1960s. Published in conjunction with a touring exhibition to five leading museums in the US and Mexico, this volume provides an opportunity to survey the development of Mucha's style, which evolved to be synonymous with Art Nouveau. It explores how it was rediscovered by later generations of artists, becoming a new artistic idiom for the Psychedelic Art of the 1960s and 1970s as well as a wide range of visual culture from the late 20th century to today, exemplified by American comics, Japanese manga and street murals.
Coinciding with the opening of the new Mucha Museum in the baroque Savarin Palace in Prague, Timeless Mucha is organized into three thematic sections: Inspirations for the Mucha Style, Le Style Mucha, and Art Nouveau and The Rebirth of the Mucha Style and Its Legacy. The first two sections focus on Mucha's artistic development, examining the theoretical basis of Mucha's style--famously known as le style Mucha in fin-de-siècle Paris--and its context. Tracing the artist's footsteps from his youth in Moravia through the 1890s, when he attained fame as a poster artist, the first section highlights a selection of works of art, crafts and books from his own collection. The third section explores visual links between Mucha's artistic idiom and the styles developed by later generations of artists. While Mucha's style continues to influence today's visual culture, including fashion, animation movies and computer games, this catalog also focuses on a philosophical aspect of Mucha's legacy: the art of message-making.
The artistic legacy of Alphonse Maria Mucha (1860-1939), one of the founders of the Art Nouveau style, is both brilliant and bewilderingly diverse. Mucha is most famous for his Sarah Bernhardt posters and his magnificent decorative panels such as The Seasons, works that continue to grow in popularity, despite the indifferent quality of most modern reproductions. To graphic artists and commercial designers, Mucha is praised for the innovative stylebooks that pioneered the use of Art Nouveau in commercial packaging, design, and ornament. But the primary element in all of Mucha's artistic endeavors -- his evocative, highly original draftsmanship -- has never been adequately surveyed.
This collection of 70 high-quality illustrations -- six in black-and-white and nine in full color -- offers the first and only comprehensive survey of Mucha's drawings, and as such, provides a unique insight into the aesthetic qualities that were fundamental to all of the artist's work. Reproduced directly from his original drawings, these works span Mucha's entire career and include sketches for his famous book and magazine illustrations, preliminary sketches for paintings, advertising and packaging art, studies for stylebooks, etc. Famous examples include The Seasons, full-color drawings for the complete set, plus a preliminary charcoal sketch for Autumn; St. Louis World's Fair poster, full-color lithograph and preliminary pencil sketch; Sarah Bernhardt, four works in India ink, pencil, etc.; and Documents décoratifs and Figures décoratives, studies from Mucha's two innovative stylebooks.
Naturally, many of these drawing are interesting because they reveal the initial thoughts for famous works but most basically these drawings show that Mucha's draftsmanship -- highly admired, even by the cantankerous Whistler -- was the brilliant underpinning of his entire craft.
Mucha as mystic, bohemian and philosopher
Spanning the entirety of Alphonse Mucha's prolific career, this handsome, affordable and concise overview examines the beloved artist's oeuvre--from posters, jewelry, interior decoration, theater and product design to painting, book illustration, sculpture and photography--across six themed sections that highlight the artist's personality: A Bohemian in Paris; A Picture-Maker for People; A Cosmopolitan; The Mystic; The Patriot; and The Artist-Philosopher.
Mucha rose to fame in fin-de-si cle Paris with his elegant theater posters for Sarah Bernhardt, the most famous French actress of the time, and his decorative panels featuring gracefully posed women. For these posters, Mucha created a distinctive style characterized by harmonious compositions, sinuous forms and a muted palette, which became synonymous with the newly emerging decorative style of the time--Art Nouveau. By the time of the Paris Exposition Universelle of 1900, Mucha had become a leading figure in this decorative-art movement, and he defined the look of the era. The catalog explores the development of Mucha's career and overall achievements as a multifaceted and visionary artist.
Czech painter Alphonse Mucha (1860-1939) leapt to fame in 1895, in Paris, when his poster Gismonda, created for the superstar Sarah Bernhardt, heralded the birth of Le Style Mucha. Between 1903 and 1922 Mucha made four trips to the United States, where he attracted the patronage of Charles Richard Crane, a Chicago industrialist and Slavophile, who subsidized Mucha's epic series of 20 large historical paintings illustrating the Epic of the Slavic People (1912-30). After 1922 Mucha lived in Czechoslovakia, where he died in 1939.
To many, Alphonse Maria Mucha (1860-1939) is best known for his beautiful bell poque posters and magnificent decorative panels. His distinctive graphic approach to the 1895 poster advertising Sarah Bernhardt's performance in Gismonda captured the Parisian public's imagination and catapulted the artist into overnight success. During the next ten years he became the high priest of Art Nouveau, publishing several stylebooks which were to have a lasting influence on 20th-century art and design.
Figures decoratives, originally published in 1905, is a landmark book of the Art Nouveau movement and perhaps best exemplifies Mucha's artistic product in the years 1895-1905, the decade that made him famous. Mucha's purity of line and beauty of proportion take their inspiration from nature. But more than nature's imitator, he was its interpreter, translating its rhythms and designs into works that exude an indefinable charm. His unique approach combined originality of invention with spontaneous energy supported by flawless draftsmanship.
This new edition of Figures decoratives carefully reproduces all forty of the original two-color plates from a rare first edition now valued at several thousand dollars. Comprised of finished pen, pencil, charcoal, and chalk, this volume represents the essence of Mucha's genius and documents the subtle shadings and linear excellence that characterized his masterful illustrations. Placed in rectangles, triangles, stars, circles, and a number of irregular geometric forms are figures of women, young girls, and children of both sexes. The harmony between the movement of head, limbs, and drapery and the sense of balance in each pose are the result of Mucha's instinct for composition, gift for ornamentation, and profound knowledge of his craft.
Mucha's hand and eye are clearly evident in all his work though one can see other artistic influences which shaped the artist's development, including Gauguin's cloissonnism, Horta's and Van de Velde's kinetic treatment of curvilinear design, as well as the linear conventions of Moorish architecture and Islamic ornamentation. Yet Mucha himself believed that he owed his greatest artistic debt to the folk art traditions of his native Moravia.
