Alphonse Marie Mucha, 24 July 1860 – 14 July 1939, was a Czech Art Nouveau painter and decorative artist, known best for his distinct style. He produced many paintings, illustrations, advertisements, postcards, and designs.
Mucha produced a flurry of paintings, posters, advertisements, and book illustrations, as well as designs for jewelry, carpets, wallpaper, and theatre sets in what was termed initially the Mucha Style but became known as Art Nouveau (French for 'new art'). Mucha's works frequently featured beautiful young women in flowing, vaguely Neoclassical-looking robes, often surrounded by lush flowers which sometimes formed halos behind their heads. In contrast with contemporary poster makers he used pale pastel colors.
When Czechoslovakia won its independence after World War I, Mucha designed the new postage stamps, banknotes, and other government documents for the new state.
Mucha spent many years working on what he considered his life's fine art masterpiece, The Slav Epic (Slovanská epopej), a series of twenty huge paintings depicting the history of the Czech and the Slavic people in general, bestowed to the city of Prague during 1928.
On 24 July 2010, he was honored with a Google Doodle in memory of his 150th birthday. (LOL! Guess you know you've made it when you have been Google Doodled!)
I love Art Deco/ Art Nouveau - so rich, detailed, beautiful. Wouldn't it have been something to have been around then - the exquisite art, architecture, jewelry, and fashion!
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