Alphonse Maria Mucha

Born in Czechoslovakia, Mucha received his first formal training at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Munich from 1885-1887. His patron Count Karl Khuen-Belassi, then sent him to Paris where he worked as a magazine and book illustrator. Mucha established his reputation as an innovative designer with a series of nine lithograph posters commissioned by the actress Sarah Bernhardt along with two posters for Job cigarettes (1896 and 1898). In these works Mucha created a unique style depicting exotic, sensuous women with long tangled hair together with densely-packed Byzantine and Moravian folk art motifs and stylized plants and flowers. Mucha produced a number of designs for printed fabrics between... more.