Context
The era & the circle
No artist works alone. The people who commissioned, financed, and inspired Mucha, and the restless Paris of 1900 that made his style possible.
People in his orbit
“The Divine Sarah”, the most famous actress alive. Her Gismonda commission made Mucha overnight; her six-year contract made him rich.
The industrial press behind the style. His contract flooded Europe with Mucha's decorative panels: The Seasons, Zodiac, the Flowers.
A Chicago millionaire and Slavophile who quietly financed the entire Slav Epic for nearly two decades, and later Czechoslovak independence.
First president of Czechoslovakia. Mucha designed the young republic's stamps, banknotes, and state emblem, refusing any fee.
Shared Mucha's cramped Paris studio between Tahiti voyages, famously photographed playing Mucha's harmonium together.
Toured Moravia with Mucha in 1902 during the Prague exhibition of his work, a meeting of the era's two most famous art exports.
The movement
Art Nouveau
A style that refused the straight line: whiplash curves, botanical ornament, and the belief that everyday things deserve beauty. Mucha never liked the label; he called it simply his own style.
Read the essays →The moment
Paris, 1900
Electric light, the Métro, the Exposition Universelle: fifty million visitors saw a city drunk on the new century. Posters were its social media, and Mucha's covered every boulevard.
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