Princezna Hyacinta

Alfons Maria Mucha, also known as Alfons Mucha, was a Czech painter, poster painter, graphic artist, illustrator, amateur und photographer. He is considered one of the outstanding representatives of the Art Nouveau style. Mucha began his artistic career as an autodidact, that is, as someone who acquires knowledge or skills on his own.

After his schooling and some time as an office clerk, he was employed at the Kautsky-Brioschi-Burghart studio in Vienna, where he was entrusted with stage painting, especially for the Ringtheater. In 1881, after a devastating fire at the Ringtheater, he was dismissed as the youngest employee and for a while kept his head above water with drawings and portraits. Just 1 year later Mucha was commissioned to decorate the interior of the neo-baroque chateau Emin zámek (Emmahof) near Hrušovany nad Jevišovkou (German: Grusbach) in Moravia, which was created for Count Eduard Khuen-Belasy. He executed further paintings in the ancestral castle Gandegg of the Khuen-Belasy family near Eppan in South Tyrol. Supported by the Khuen-Belasi family, he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich from 1885 to 1887. On the occasion of the World's Fair of 1889 Mucha moved to Paris, where he took lessons from various teachers. There he lived a modest life and made a living from small commissions 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's Fair, Mucha became interested in Slavic culture, which later inspired his main work, the Slavic Epic.

His breakthrough came in 1894 when he designed an event poster for the actress Sarah Bernhard for the play "Gismonda" because her usual contractors had dropped out. Two weeks later Mucha's posters were hanging all over Paris, making him world famous. Mucha became one of the most sought-after poster artists of the Belle Époque. At the time, he was still largely unknown in his homeland.

In 1896 Mucha designed a poster for Sarah Bernhard as Lady of the Camellias, which is considered one of the early highlights of Art Nouveau poster art. During this period Mucha also created designs for stock and obligation documents, for example for the department store "Paris-France". In 1898 Mucha gave drawing courses at the Acedémie Colarossi and the Académie Carmen.

In 1897, Mucha's most important work of illustration was created in just a few months, making it one of the most important works of Art Nouveau book illustration. Mucha was active as an amateur photographer and used his photographs as models for his prints. Mucha was a member of the League of Freemasons and is considered a re-founder of Czech Freemasonry.

In 1904 Mucha went to the United States, and taught there as a lecturer at the Academies of Fine Arts in New York, Philadelphia and Chicago. In 1907 Mucha was hired by Moritz Baumfeld, in a German theater in New York, as a stage designer. After World War I, his success dwindled and he went back to Czechoslovakia, where he continued to work artistically, designing stamps, for example. In his late period, Mucha finally broke away from Art Nouveau and from 1911 to 1928 created a monumental epic on the history of Slavic peoples, the Slavic Epic, a cycle consisting of 20 huge paintings, which he donated to the city of Pragueue upon completion.

He died in Pragueue on July 14, 1939, as a result of pneumonia.