Alphonse Maria Mucha was born in the town of Ivancice, Moravia
(today's region of Czech Republic). Art Nouveau illustrator and
painter noted for his posters of idealized female figures.
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 Bernhardt, 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 featuring women. His fascination with the sensuous aspects of
female beauty-luxuriantly flowing strands of hair, heavy-lidded eyes,
and full-lipped mouths—as well as his presentation of the female image
as ornamental, reveal the influence of the English Pre-Raphaelite
aesthetic on Mucha, particularly the work of Dante Gabriel Rossetti.
The sensuous bravura of the draftsmanship, particularly the use of
twining, whiplash lines, imparts a strange refinement to his female
figures.
