Images below from:
 http://www.mucha-museum.co.jp/index_e.html

original name Alfons Maria Mucha
 b. July 24, 1860, Ivancice, Moravia, Austrian Empire [now in Czech
 Republic]
 d. July 14, 1939, Prague, Czech.

Art Nouveau illustrator and painter noted for his posters of idealized
female figures.

After early education in Brno, Moravia, and work for a theatre
scene-painting firm in Vienna, Mucha studied art in Prague, Munich,
and Paris in the 1880s. He first became prominent as the principal
advertiser of the actress Sarah Bernhardt in Paris. He designed the
posters for several theatrical productions featuring that actress,
beginning with Gismonda (1894), and he designed sets and
costumes for her as well. Mucha designed many other posters and
magazine illustrations, becoming one of the foremost designers in the
Art Nouveau style. His supple, fluent draftsmanship is used to great
effect in his posters of female nudes, whose delicate features are
framed by luxuriantly flowing strands of hair. The sensuous bravura
of the draftsmanship, particularly the use of twining, whiplash lines,
imparts a strange refinement to these nudes.

Between 1903 and 1922 Mucha made four trips to the United
States, where he attracted the patronage of Charles Richard Crane,
a Chicago industrialist and Slavophile, who subsidized Mucha's
series of 20 large historical paintings (1912-30) illustrating the "Epic
of the Slavic People." After 1922 Mucha lived in Czechoslovakia,
donating his "Slavic Epic" paintings to the city of Prague. [Source:  Enc. Brit.]

R. Patterson:  Concerning his connection with Decadence, it should be noted that the luxurious, flowing hair of the models, the dreamy women, the highly ornamental borders and details, the occasional emphasis on dawning / sunset, the fond views of antiquity, and the profusion of flowers were well received by the Decadents.  Notably absent from Mucha's healthy specimens is any sign of Beardsley's Mesalina or the jaded, wasted shadows of Decadent artists fond of the Usher types.

For excellent examples of Mucha's art, go to http://www.mucha-museum.co.jp/index_e.html .
 

Last Updated: March 6, 1999