Alfons Mucha exhibition opens in Washington before touring the US and Mexico
A major exhibition of Alfons Mucha’s posters and banners has opened in Washington, D.C. Entitled Eternal Mucha – The Magic of the Line, the exhibition showcases the works of the famous Art Nouveau artist and will travel across the United States and Mexico for nearly two years.
More than 100 of Mucha's works are currently on display at the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C. These range from his early childhood drawings in Moravia to his famous Sarah Bernhardt posters and advertising banners, as well as his sketches and preliminary studies.
Tomoko Sato, curator of the Mucha Foundation, which loaned the works for the exhibition, says the show also aims to highlight the broader influence of Alfons Mucha on the art world.
“Alphonse Mucha is particularly famous for his poster work. However, we are going to show inspirations for his famous style as a master of Art Nouveau and also what the idea was behind such a design idea and what kind of impact actually he still has on today's artist.”
Marcus Mucha, the artist’s grandson and head of the Alfons Mucha Foundation, says one of the key aims of the U.S. exhibition is to explore the Czech roots of Mucha’s art while also examining his lasting influence across a variety of artistic formats, from rock and roll posters to manga, comic books and video games:
“I think for our Czech audience, and we hope that Czech people will come and see this exhibition here as well, they will look at this work, they will see how a boy from the small town of Ivancice was able to create artworks that, over a hundred years after his birth, continue to influence artists around the world, and that through his hard work and following his dream, he was able to influence the way that the world looks around us, even today.”
The Eternal Mucha exhibition will remain in Washington throughout May before embarking on a tour of the American continent. David Galligan, who oversees the Mucha Foundation's exhibition program, outlines the next stops:
“Next it goes to the New Mexico Museum of Art in Santa Fe, then it goes to the Boca Raton Museum in Boca Raton, Florida, then it goes to the Nelson-Atkins Museum in Kansas City, when at the same time there's the football World Cup being played there, and then it goes to Museo Caluz in Mexico City, which is the first time Mucha has been exhibited in Mexico on this scale.”
Marcus Mucha, who has traveled to Washington to present his great-grandfather’s work, says the artist would have been honored by this prestigious showcase:
“You know, we're thrilled, and I think that Alphonse, if you could have imagined that one day his artworks, 160, 165 years after his birth, would be exhibited in such a prestigious museum as the Phillips Collection here in Washington, D.C., he would have been immensely happy and immensely proud.”
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