Sale of paintings by Alfons Mucha

Alfons Mucha is a Czech artist who symbolises the change in the cultural landscape between the 19th and 20th centuries. He was a painter, illustrator and architect. He symbolizes for many the ideas of the Art nouveau movement.

Alfons Mucha was born on 24 July 1890 into a family of notables in the Austrian Empire. It was not his talents on the canvas that most distinguished him, but his voice. This prompted him to join the Brno choir. At that time, the young artist often drew and was interested in church frescoes. In 1875, when he was employed as a clerk and decided to devote his life to art, his first moments were difficult. Rejected by the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague, he went to Vienna, then to Munich, where he began his training while working on his first projects.

This choice was rewarded in 1889 when, after two years of further training, he was hired by the Armand Colin publishing house. His talents as an illustrator gradually asserted themselves, culminating in the popularity of his poster for "Gismonda" in 1895. The end of the 1890s was the time to celebrate Mucha's talents and he was awarded the Légion d'honneur in 1900. However, he left Paris in 1906 to embark on an eight-year stay in the United States. Seeking to prove his talent as a painter, it was through his return to the art of illustration that he obtained the financing of his most important idea: "The Slavic epic", massive paintings that he planned to produce in Prague. He died of pneumonia on 14 July 1939. He is also known for his Laurel work and his series of precious stones including Amethyst, Ruby and Topaz.