Alphonse Mucha

Happy Birthday Alphonse Mucha!! Czech designer born in 1860, worked in the Art Nouveaux style. He is notorious for his highly decorative designs of women. His skill at singing earned him the right to attend school for the arts, where he began his career in illustration. An advertisement poser in 1895 set off a frenzy of creative work in jewelry, carpet and wallpaper design, etc. Although he shied away from the fact, he created a new stylized highly decorative art form termed Mucha Style, eventually becoming known as Art Nouveau. He claimed instead to be searching for expression of his innermost self and his Czech birthright. Mucha spent several years working on what he considered his masterpiece, a representation of Czech history and Slavic people in 20 large paintings. His creations are primarily women with neoclassical robes and finery, floral patterns, halos and sometimes spiritual quotations accompany the designs. His work experienced a revival of interest in the 1960s.