Alfons Mucha

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Alfons Mucha (1906)

Alfons Maria Mucha ( pronunciation ? / I , born July 24, 1860 in Ivančice (Eibenschütz) in Moravia ; † July 14, 1939 in Prague ) was a Czech poster artist, graphic artist , illustrator , painter , amateur photographer and craftsman who was one of the outstanding representatives of Art Nouveau . Audio file / audio sample

life and work

La Dame aux camélias , 1896
Share certificate of the "SA de l'Exposition Religieuse Internationale de 1900" from 1898, a graphic by Alfons Mucha

Mucha began his artistic career as an autodidact . After his school education and after having worked for some time as an office clerk, he was employed in the Atelier Kautsky - Brioschi - Burghart in Vienna, where he was entrusted with stage paintings, especially for the Ringtheater . After the devastating fire of the Ringtheater in 1881, he was the youngest employee to be dismissed and kept afloat for a while with drawings and portraits.

In 1882 Mucha was commissioned to furnish the interior of the neo-baroque Emin zámek (Emmahof) near Hrušovany nad Jevišovkou (German: Grusbach) in Moravia , which was built for Count Eduard Khuen von Belasy . He made other paintings in the Gandegg family palace of the Khuen-Belasy family near Eppan in South Tyrol . With the support of the Khuen-Belasi family, he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich from 1885 to 1887 .

On the occasion of the world exhibition of 1889 , Mucha moved from Munich to Paris , at that time the Mecca of the arts. There he took lessons from various teachers, where he lived in modest circumstances, but was able to keep his head above water with small orders for book illustrations. For a short time he shared a studio with Paul Gauguin . When he discovered the Slavs under Ottoman rule in Bosnia at the world exhibition , his interest in the Slavic culture began , which later inspired him to write his main non-commercial work, the Slav Epic .

A casual job for Sarah Bernhardt , the best-known western actress at the turn of the century, helped him achieve his breakthrough . Shortly before Christmas 1894, she was looking for an artist who could design an event poster for the play "Gismonda" because her usual contractors had failed. Mucha found out about this by chance while visiting a printing company and offered himself. He got the contract, and so two weeks later his posters that would make him world famous were hanging all over Paris. They were so popular that almost all of them freely shown were stolen by art lovers. This is how Mucha became one of the most sought-after poster artists of the Belle Époque .

In 1896, Mucha designed a poster for Sarah Bernhardt as a lady of the camellia , which is widely regarded as one of the early highlights of Art Nouveau poster art. During this time Mucha also created drafts for share and bond documents, for example for the department store "Paris-France", which was founded in Paris in 1898 and by 1914 had more than 70 branches throughout France. In the period from 1898 to 1946, this company issued 13 different stocks and 16 different bonds in the Mucha design. The “Société des Immeubles de France” has two bonds from the years 1891 and 1896; there is a document from the "Société Anonyme de l'Exposition Réligieuse Internationale de 1900" (funding of a religious world exhibition). Insurance policies from “Slavia” (mutual insurance bank in Prague) also bear Mucha's unmistakable artistic signature. Historical securities from these companies are among the most decorative and sought-after works among collectors today. In 1898 Mucha also gave drawing courses at the Académie Colarossi and the Académie Carmen .

In 1897, in just a few months, Mucha's most important illustration work and thus one of the most important works of Art Nouveau book illustration, the 134 color lithographs for Ilsée, Princesse de Tripoli , a French fairy tale by Robert de Flers , published by Piazza Verlag . In 1901 a German and a Czech version were published.

Mucha also worked as an amateur photographer and used his photographs as templates for his graphics.

In 1901 Mucha became a knight and in 1934 an officer in the French Legion of Honor . Mucha was a member of the Freemasons Association and, according to the historian Jaroslav Šebek (* 1970), is considered to be a re-founder of Czech Freemasonry. A year later he traveled to Moravia with the French sculptor Auguste Rodin . In 1904 Mucha went to the United States for two years , welcomed and celebrated with a multi-page special supplement to the New York Times , and taught there as a lecturer at the Academy of Fine Arts in New York , Philadelphia and Chicago . In 1906 he married Marie Chytilová in Prague , whom he had met in Paris.

After the First World War, its success waned. Mucha went back to Czechoslovakia , where he continued to work as an artist. So he designed z. B. Postage stamps (including the first postage stamp from 1918 with a Hradschin motif), banknotes and medals for the young Czechoslovak state.

In his later phase, Mucha finally broke away from Art Nouveau and from 1911 to 1928 created a monumental epic about the history of the Slavic peoples, the Slavic Epic , a cycle of 20 huge paintings that he donated to the city of Prague after completion. Financially independent, he lived with his wife and two children in a castle north of Prague.

Mucha was one of the first to be interned after the German troops marched in in 1939. He died shortly afterwards of complications from pneumonia. His son Jiří Mucha was a Czech cosmopolitan, writer, publicist and screenwriter.

  • Lorenzaccio , 1896

  • Monaco Monte Carlo , 1897

  • Fruits , 1897

  • F. Champenois Imprimeur-Éditeur , 1897

  • La Plume , 1898

  • Dance , 1898

  • Postcard by Alfons M. Mucha - Byzantine Head, 1900

  • Self-portrait , around 1907

Exhibitions

The Mucha Museum Prague is dedicated to the life and work of the world-famous representative of Art Nouveau. It is located in the baroque building of the "Kaunický palác" ( Kaunitz Palace ) in the historical heart of Prague.

Mucha's main work The Slav Epic was exhibited in Brno until the end of 2018 . Before that, it could be viewed in the Moravský Krumlov Castle (German: Mährisch Kromau) near his birthplace Ivančice until 2012 .

Eponyms

The asteroid (5122) Mucha , discovered on January 3, 1989, was named after him in May 1999.

Portraits

  • Heinrich Kautsch medal. Three versions: 41 mm, 80 mm and 99 mm.
  • Medal without year from Milan Knobloch. 60 mm.
  • Medal from Daniel Octobre. 78 mm.

See also

  • Slavic epic - painting cycle and main work from Mucha's late phase

literature

  • V. Kratinová:  Mucha, Alfons (1860–1939), painter and graphic artist. In: Austrian Biographical Lexicon 1815–1950 (ÖBL). Volume 6, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 1975, ISBN 3-7001-0128-7 , p. 401 f. (Direct links on p. 401 , p. 402 ).
  • Christina Ahlers, Petr Wittlich; Jürgen Döring, Susanne Kähler (ed.): Alfons Mucha - Triumph of Art Nouveau . [An exhibition by the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg in collaboration with the Mucha Foundation, May - July 1997], Braus, Heidelberg 1997. ISBN 3-89466-195-X .
  • Arthur Ellridge: Mucha [translated by Diethard H. Klein]. Komet, Frechen 2001. ISBN 3-89836-194-2 .
  • Agnes Husslein-Arco (Ed.): Alfons Mucha . [on the occasion of the Alfons Mucha exhibition, Belvedere Vienna, February 12 - June 1, 2009; further stations at the Musée Fabre Montpellier, June 20 - September 20, 2009, Kunsthalle der Hypo-Kulturstiftung Munich, October 9, 2009 - January 24, 2010]. Hirmer, Munich 2009. ISBN 978-3-7774-7035-1 .
  • Jiří Mucha : Alfons Mucha . An artist's life. (Original title: Kankán se svatozáří . Životopis Alfonse Muchy, Obelisk, Praha 1969, translated by Gustav Just). Verlag Volk und Welt , Berlin 1986. ISBN 3-353-00015-1 (About his successful life and work in Paris and his friendship with local spiritualists Sarah Bernhardt and Camille Flammarion , as well as his return to pre-war Czechoslovakia, written by his son , with numerous photo documentation).
  • Sarah Mucha, Ronald F. Lipp, Victor Arwas , Rainer Zerbst (translator): Alfons Mucha. Belser, Stuttgart 2000. ISBN 3-7630-2382-8 (On the occasion of the establishment of the Mucha Museum in Prague, Sarah Mucha is an art historian living in London and the wife of Mucha's grandson and employee of the Mucha Foundation).
  • Renate Ulmer: Alfons Mucha . Prelude to Art nouveau. Taschen, Cologne 1993. ISBN 3-8228-9613-6 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Jakob Schmitz: Aufbruch auf Aktien , p. 275. Düsseldorf, Verlag Wirtschaft und Finanz 1996. ISBN 3-87881-101-2
  2. ^ Sarah Mucha: Alphonse Mucha , p. 155. London, Frances Lincoln Ltd 2005. ISBN 0-7112-2517-6
  3. ^ Wilfried Baatz: History of Photography . Dumont, Cologne 1997, ISBN 3-7701-3616-0 , p. 59
  4. ^ Tajné společenství v Čechách - zednáři (Secret Societies in Bohemia Freemasons) ( Czech ) Homepage of the ČT24 transmitter . Retrieved November 18, 2012.
  5. ↑ https://mucha.brno.cz/de/#intro
  6. ↑ Minor Planet Circ. 34621

Web links

Commons : Alfons Maria Mucha  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Mucha, Alfons
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Mucha, Alfons Maria (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Czech poster artist, graphic artist, illustrator, painter and craftsman
DATE OF BIRTH July 24, 1860
PLACE OF BIRTH Ivančice , Moravia
DATE OF DEATH July 14, 1939
Place of death Prague