Alphonse Mucha,
Documents décoratifs,
Folio Plate 60, 1902;
Collection of Patrick M. Rowe.
90
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Ma
g a z i n e
.
ered The Slav Epic his life’s
greatest work, and in 1928
he donated the paintings to
the city of Prague.
In 1903, before his first
trip to the United States,
Mucha met a young Czech
woman, Maruška Chutilovά.
Three years later, Alphonse
and Maruška were married
in Prague. The couple had
c om
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O
c t o b e r
/D
e c e m b e r
two children, Jaroslava and
Jiří, who were sometimes
used as models in Mucha’s
later work.
Towards the end of his
career, when the numerous
20th century modern movements, such as Die Brücke,
Der Blaue Reiter, Art Deco,
Futurism, Cubism, and Surrealism, began to develop, le
style Mucha, unfortunately,
was viewed as old fashioned
by many of the younger artists. However, since his
death in 1939, Mucha’s
body of work, especially his
graphic art, has been reevaluated, and as a result, his
genius has been justly recognized by both artists and
art historians. Today, he is
viewed as a master artist not
only in the field of commercial art, but in the realm of
fine art as well.
The period of history when
Alphonse Mucha lived and
worked was an explosive
time of innovation, globalization, and shifts in culture
and society. It was during
this era, bookended by the
Franco-Prussian War and
the First World War, that the
style known as Art Nouveau
emerged. Meaning literally
2015