Alphonse Mucha

Alphonse Mucha’s romantic posters and paintings epitomize the Art Nouveau movement that swept through Europe and North America in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. With a palette of subdued pastels, the artist depicted beautiful women posed against sensuous, botanical backdrops. In keeping with dominant Art Nouveau aesthetics, his compositions feature florid lines, decorative elements, and natural forms. Mucha first found success as a commercial artist in 1894, when he designed a poster for a play featuring Sarah Bernhardt, the leading actress of the day. After that, he was consistently commissioned to create posters, paintings, theater set designs, costumes, jewelry, textiles, sculptures, and furniture. During his lifetime, Mucha exhibited in Paris, Vienna, Prague, Budapest, London, New York and other major cities; since his death, he has been featured in shows at the Victoria and Albert Museum, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Jewish Museum, the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum, and the Kunsthalle Rotterdam.