Vintage Posters: Mucha( Alphonse )

ALPHONSE MUCHA 1860 - 1939 1860 - He was born on July 14 th in Moravia.

1870-1881 - He began drawing and made trips to Prague and Vienna, where he worked as painter’s apprentice for a theatre scene-painting firm. He discovered the theatre world, which would exert wide spread influence on his art production, as well as on the composition of his posters.

1883-1893 - He met his future patron, the count Khuen-Bellassi, who commissioned him to decorate with fresco painting his castles in Emmahof and Gandegg. He studied art in Munich (1883-1888) and in Paris (1888-1889).

Late in 1894 - He met Sarah Bernhardt : it was the turning-point in his life. He was commissioned to design a poster advertising the actress in Victorien Sardou’s Gismonda he gained a reputation with this poster. It was the starting point of a series of posters showing the influence of the principal characteristics of the Art Nouveau and the "Mucha’s style". The success of Gismonda induced Sarah Bernhardt to give Mucha a six-years contract for other posters,costumes and jewelry.

1895-1899 - He participated in the twentieth Exhibition of the Salon des Cent and designed its poster. He took part in 1896 in the exhibition of the Rheims’s Circus. He designed his first advertising posters for the firm Lef�vre - Utile. He designed new posters for Sarah Bernhardt La Dame aux am�lias, La Samaritaine, M�d�e,, la Tosca and Hamlet. He went abroad. When he got back to France, he designed famous posters for the cigarette paper Job (1896 and 898), Perfecta (1897), which showed his talents in decorative art.

1900-1915 - He won a silver medal at the Universal Exposition for the decoration of the Pavilion of Bosnia-Herzegovinia. Project for the decoration of the shop Fouquet. He designed billboards, medallions, jewelry, stained-glass windows,... He carried on hisillustration works for different newspapers, such as Le fran�ais illustr� ... Exhibition at Saint-Germain en Laye with Ch�ret, Steinlen, Toulouse-Lautrec...

1903-1916 - He made trips to the United States and designed a poster for the American actress Leslie Carter (1908). He got back to Moravia and worked on his greatest works of art : "Slav Epic" series of 20 large paintings.

1923 - Exhibitions in Brooklyn and Chicago. .

1924-1936 - He set up in Prague and designed banknotes, stained-glass windows and postage stamps. Exhibition in Paris at the Mus�e du Jeu de Paume dedicated to Mucha and Kupka.

1939 - He died in Prague on July 14th. It was his birthday.