Exhibition

The Mucha Museum – the one and only original museum in the world dedicated exclusively to the life and work of the world-famous representative of Art Nouveau, Alfons Mucha (1860-1939) – was opened to the public in Prague on February 13, 1998. In September 2024, the exhibition was complemented with a new collection. The Mucha Museum now exhibits key works from Ivan Lendl’s famous collection of Mucha’s works curated by Jack Rennert. Ivan Lendl’s collection is currently owned by Portu Gallery investments – a member of WOOD&CO.

The exhibition features posters from his Paris period and a number of popular commercial commissions for companies such as Moët & Chandon, Job Cigarettes and Lefèvre-Utile Biscuits, among others.

The museum is divided into five main sections:

• Decorative Panels; Parisian Posters; Advertisements; Czech Posters; Memorabilia
• The exhibition concludes with an impressive documentary film about the life and work of Alfons Mucha.
• The exhibition contains the most important and popular works of the artist's poster art.

Section 1. Decorative Panels

Alphonse Mucha was a leading exponent of the Art-Nouveau style, which demanded the creation of a decorative scheme that would allow for the repetition of stylistic patterns. Mucha based his work on an image that lent itself to an arrangement in cycles based on traditional themes, usually drawn from the physical world. For this reason, Mucha gave his first set of decorative panels, made in 1896, the title The Four Seasons. He continued this practice with a number of highly successful panels which respect the fourfold or twofold variation on a theme, including The Four Times of Day (1899), or Precious stones (1900) originating during the period when Mucha’s style was already fully developed. The stylized combination of nature and beautiful women was an expression of his joyful vision of life, one greatly appreciated by his audience at the time. From the artistic perspective, The Four Arts cycle (1898) can be considered the most serious among these cycles, executed in several techniques and distinguished especially by the poetic quality of Mucha’s designs. The latest work from Mucha's panels here is The Moon and the Stars series (1902). In this case, the figures are more dramatic than sensual compared to the other cycles.

Section 2. Parisian Posters

Posters made in Paris in the 1890s form the best-known and world famous segment of Mucha’s work. It was through them that he managed to promote his own version of the new decorative style. The primary group consists of posters for Sarah Bernhardt, who was a famous Parisian actress. The first of these, created at the very turn of 1894 and 1895, portrayed Bernhardt starring in the role of Gismonda. Extant designs and print proofs for this poster demonstrate, through its stylistic and mainly colour conception, Mucha’s intensive search for a new poster image despite the short time he had for this commission. His artistic revolution brought a certain new elegance to the hitherto highly colourful “street salon”, thus increasing the newly found importance of the poster for modern art. The Bernhardt posters however also include dramatic tones in Médée (1898) and he also portrayed her in male roles, for example in the plays Lorenzaccio (1896) and Hamlet (1899). Also on display are two variants of The Lady with Camellias, a highly popular play about self-sacrifice for love. The last Paris poster was a portrait of Christ for the play Passion (1904). All of these works display Mucha’s extraordinary ingenuity and a sense of visually effective form.

Gismonda

This is the poster that made Mucha famous. The story of its creation is legendary, with many commentators arguing over its details. There is no question that Mucha himself saw the hand of fate in the circumstances which led to the creation of this poster.

The story took place at Christmas of 1894. Mucha was doing a favour for a friend, correcting proofs at Lemercier’s printing works when Sarah Bernhard called the printer with an urgent order for a new poster for Gismonda. All of the artists who normally worked for Lemercier were on holiday and so he turned to Mucha. A demand order from “the divine Sarah” could not be ignored. The poster that Mucha produced was revolutionary in its genre. The long, narrow shape, soft pastel colours and the stillness of the figure captured in a near-life size produced a surprising sense of dignity and gravity which was quite startling. The poster became so popular among the Parisian public that some collectors would bribe the bill stickers to get it, while others would even cut them out from the hoardings at night.

Sarah Bernhardt was delighted with the poster, immediately offering Mucha a six-year contract for the creation of stage and costume designs and posters. At the same time, the artist also signed an exclusive contract with the printer Champenois for commercial and decorative posters.

Lorenzaccio

In Alfred de Musset’s play Lorenzaccio, Sarah Bernhardt played the male hero, Lorenzo de’ Medici, at the time of the siege of Florence by the tyrant Duke Alexander, who is symbolically rendered as a dragon menacing the Florentine coat of arms. Lorenzo contemplates the murder of Alexander, which is depicted in the bottom segment of the poster.

Médée

Playwright Catulle Mendes adopted Euripides’ classical text especially for Sarah Bernhardt, depicting the Greek hero Jason, hitherto perceived as an untouchable mythological ideal, as a ruthless deceiver who had betrayed all who loved him in pursuit of his selfish passions, thereby giving Médée the psychological justification for her terrible crime. The poster renders the substance of the tragedy through a lonely figure. The mosaic background and letter “D” of the Greek alphabet situates the play in ancient Greece. Médée’s gaze, full of horror, is fixed on the shining dagger in her hand, stained with the blood of her children who are lying by her feet. The unusually detailed hands and the serpentine bracelet adorning Medea’s forearm are quite remarkable. This bracelet was designed by Mucha during his work on the poster and Sarah liked it so much that she commissioned jeweller George Fouquet to create a snake bracelet and a ring embellished with gemstones for her to wear on stage.

Hamlet

Sarah Bernhardt starred in the main male role in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, translated into French for her by Eugène Morand and Marcel Schwob. Behind the central figure of Hamlet, the ghost of his murdered father haunting the ramparts of Elsinore appears in the background. Ophelia, who had drowned, lies, decorated with flowers, in the segment by Hamlet’s feet. Hamlet was the last poster Mucha made for Sarah.

Section 3. Advertisements

Alfons Mucha's commercial work was central to his fame, particularly his product and brand posters during the Belle Époque. The breakthrough came in 1894 with the aforementioned Gismonde poster for the actress Sarah Bernhardt, which led to commissions from major companies such as **Moët & Chandon**, **Job Cigarettes** and **Lefèvre-Utile Biscuits**. The most impressive poster in this section is a commission for Nestlé – A Tribute from Nestlé (1897) – a gift to Queen Victoria to celebrate her 60th jubilee. Mucha's posters depicted elegant, slender female figures surrounded by floral motifs and flowing lines, epitomizing the art nouveau style. His designs elevated everyday products and made them synonymous with beauty and luxury. However, in addition to product advertisements, his commercial commissions also include banners for events such as Paris 1900, the Brooklyn Exhibition 1920 or the Monaco-Monte Carlo poster, encouraging Parisians to visit the bay. Through lithography, these works were mass-produced, combining fine art with advertising and shaping contemporary marketing trends.

Section 4. Czech posters

After his permanent relocation back to his homeland in 1910, Alphonse Mucha returned to his long-held desire to systematically and single-mindedly, through his art, address his fellow people and express their needs and ideals. Gradually a new set of posters emerged, quite distinct in design from the Parisian ones. In terms of theme, we mainly encounter a newly grasped folklore motif, emphasizing the colourful beauty of Moravian folk costumes and the gentle Slavic type of girls represented here by the Moravian Teachers' Choir (1911). He received the contract for the Slavia (1907) Mutual Insurance Bank in Prague while he was still in the USA. There is also a poster for his most monumental work - The Slavic Epic (1928), which is as if cut out of a piece of the Oath of Omladina under the Slavic Linden Tree. We end the section with a lyrical recollection of Parisian motifs with Princess Hyacinth (1911).

Section 5. Memorabilia