Alfons Mucha - Gismonda | Highlights from the NGP

An encounter with Count Khuen-Belasi brought the young artist good luck. The count decided to become Mucha’s patron and promoter. He sent Mucha to Munich to study figurative painting. After two years, he continued to support the artist during his studies in Paris. At that time, Paris was a vibrant metropolis. The Eiffel Tower was under construction and many art movements emerged there. Alfons Mucha became friends with many artists – for example, Paul Gauguin, with whom he shared his studio for some time.

A breakthrough in his career occurred at Christmas time in 1894. Mucha was at his publisher’s when the famous French actress Sarah Bernhardt called. She was in need of a new poster for her highly successful playGismonda. Mucha accepted the commission although he had just a few days to design the poster. On January 1st, the Paris streets were covered with posters depicting the beautiful actress and Mucha immediately became a sensation.

Sarah Bernhardt was so pleased with the outcome of their cooperation that she signed a six-year contract with Mucha. The painter then designed more posters as well as costumes and stage sets for her. From 1904 onwards, Mucha stayed in turns in Europe and in America, for example in New York and Chicago, where he taught.

Mucha was a patriot and longed to create a cycle of paintings summarizing the history of the Slavic nations. However, for such an ambitious project he needed a sponsor. He found one in the United States in the person of the wealthy entrepreneur Charles Crane. Alfons Mucha then travelled back to Bohemia and spent eighteen years working on the Slav Epic cycle. It is composed of twenty monumental paintings, some of them exceeding the size of 8 × 6 meters. When the work was finally completed in 1928, Mucha and his sponsor Charles Crane ceremonially presented it to the City of Prague as a gift to the Czech nation.

Alfons Mucha considered the Slav Epic to be his life’s work. In 2017, the entire cycle travelled abroad for the very first time, specifically to Japan. At the National Art Center in Tokyo the exhibition was seen by the incredible number of 657.000 visitors in three months. It thus became one of the most frequented shows in the world.