Life story
Alfons Mucha was born in 1860 in Ivančice as the fourth of six children of a court official. He did not fare well at the gymnasium and had to leave it in 1877; he was not accepted to the Prague academy. At nineteen, he departed for Vienna to work for a theater workshop.
In 1885 he passed an examination in figurative painting and was accepted to the academy in Munich; in the fall of 1887 he went to continue his studies in Paris. There he settled, illustrated, taught in his own course, and waited for an opportunity.
It came at the turn of 1894 and 1895 in the form of a poster for the theatrical play Gismonda with Sarah Bernhardt. When it hung in the streets of Paris in January 1895, it caused a sensation and Mucha became famous overnight. For Bernhardt he created six more posters, along with a series of advertising posters and decorative cycles — and gave Art Nouveau the face by which we know it to this day. He died on July 14, 1939 in Prague. He is buried at Vyšehrad Cemetery.
Portrait: Wikimedia Commons (Public domain).
Constellation of Life
Important milestones that shaped their journey.