John Mucha is the grandson of the famous Czech Art Nouveau painter Alphonse Mucha and president of the Alphonse Mucha Foundation. Last week he visited Radio Prague’s studio to talk about his latest project –a Mucha exhibition at the Russell-Cotes Museum in Bournemouth and ambitious plans to open a Mucha museum in Paris. I first asked him to tell us more about the exhibition at Russell-Cotes.
John Mucha, photo: Miroslav Krupička
“It opened two to three months ago and is on until the end of September. It is called “Mucha In Quest of Beauty” and it is a rather interesting exhibition because, for people who don’t know, the Russell-Cotes Museum is an extraordinary place. It is a house which was built by a very wealthy family who collected Victorian paintings and also Japanese art and one of the aims of the exhibition is to show the corresponding movements that were happening at the time when my grandfather was creating his work. So it is like two mirrors looking at each other. One is items from our collection and reflected on the other side a sort of echo from the collection of Russel-Cotes. And this concept, which has been created by our curator Tomoko Sato, has inspired a number of institutions in Great Britain so in fact after the end of September, early November, the exhibition will move to the Sainsbury Centre in Norwich in a slightly bigger format because they have got a bigger space, but again they have a very interesting collection of Victorian art, and then in 2016 the exhibition will move up to Scotland to the Kelvingrove Museum in Glasgow –which is another interesting collection of its own, and so again it will be the two reflections working together –and then finally in 2017 to the Walker Art Museum in Liverpool. So from originally the idea of one exhibition it has become a tour – and a wonderful visiting card for the Czech Republic.”
Do you have any feedback from Bournemouth – people’s reactions?
“Some people have said that, when they go to the full-scale Mucha exhibitions, it is not an exhibition of one artist but five artists.”
“I think they are rather stunned –and I am not saying it because of us – but I think it will turn out to be the most successful exhibition that they have ever held, which is very nice. Also, because I divide my personal time between Prague and Dorset, where we have a family home, it is a little thank you to Dorset as well. And, interestingly enough, there is a Czech community in Bournemouth and they are very excited about this.”
You are president of the Alphonse Mucha Foundation. What are the foundation’s main goals?
“The main goals are to protect and to make available the full scale of Alphonse’s art to the world at large. I always say that one of the main aspects is to dynamite the concept that Mucha was just what the French called “affiches” because he was much more and indeed some people have said that, when they go to the full-scale exhibitions, it is not an exhibition of one artist but five artists because you have the Art Nouveau posters which made him famous, you’ve got the old paintings in the style of the Slav Epic, you have drawings, which are exquisite, you have pastels which are somewhere between Expressionism and Symbolism, you have photographs because he used photography extensively and you have three-dimensional objects. So it is to present a whole scale of what he did –and that takes a lot of time.”
And you also run a Mucha Museum in Prague….
Photo: Filip Jandourek
“We do not actually run it. It is a joint venture. It is quite an interesting story because my father had been trying for decades to have some sort of specific place for Mucha and it just didn’t work out. And then, about seventeen or eighteen years ago, almost by chance I met up with someone who arrived from Switzerland and this person –we were sitting next to each other at lunch – and he was telling me how he won the contract to renovate the Kaunický palác which belongs to the city and the city said, yes you can do this, this and this, but part of it has to be devoted to the arts. And he said – I have no idea what to do. And I said - look no further. One year later we had the Mucha Muzeum. So it is a joint venture.”
You mentioned a broad collection of works by Alphonse Mucha that your foundation has –how big a collection is it and what does it encompass?
Alphonse Mucha, photo: Free Domain
“Well, altogether it is about 3,000 works, which doesn’t necessarily mean that he would exhibit everything. I always say that my Czech grandmother must have had some Scottish blood because she never threw anything away. So some of the things you wouldn’t exhibit, but they are interesting from a historical point of view because they are quick suggestions of what he might do. If I start giving you numbers they won’t mean very much, but certainly in terms of drawings and pastels, as you would expect, that is a very significant part, a lesser part are the old paintings, of photographs we have about 4,000. He started taking photographs in the 1880s right up to the end of his life 1939 and we also have boxes of written materials which we are now finally beginning to go through. There are, for instance, letters Sarah Bernard, Toulouse Lautrec just to mention some famous names, but also Janáček, Masaryk, all these people. So that is something that we are working on.”
“A Mucha museum in Paris would say would be a sort of thank-you from the Mucha family to Paris, because without Paris it is debatable whether Mucha would have existed.”
Do you have any other projects in the pipeline?
“We are working on a concept of broadening the scope of our work, doing not just Alphonse, the historical Alphonse and his ideas but also what’s happening today. And the other thing which is occupying a lot of our time …just this morning before I came here I was responding to an email from Marie Chatardová, who is the Czech ambassador to France, she has been very helpful because we are working very intensively on the concept of establishing a second museum –a Mucha museum in Paris – which, if it happens I would say would be a sort of thank-you from the Mucha family to Paris because without Paris it is debatable whether Mucha would have existed.”
So when will this new museum in Paris open? Can you tell us any specifics already?
Photo: Free Domain
“Amazingly we do have someone who is prepared to fund it. The problem – and that is a problem –is finding the right combination of space and location. That is actually more difficult than we originally thought. But I think I can say that Marie Chatardová is in the process of organizing another meeting with Patrick Klugman. Patrick Klugman is the deputy mayor of Paris who is responsible for foreign relations. The city of Paris is very much behind the concept and quite frankly, I think that, if they had the money, it might have been slightly quicker, but we shall see. Just to give you an indication of the importance France applies to Mucha – last December the French prime minister who was here on a short state visit came to the house and indeed this coming Sunday –I actually won’t be in Prague but my eldest son who is beginning the process of taking over from me will be here –and he will be greeting the French foreign minister who is coming to the house together I think with the Czech foreign minister, Mr. Zaorálek.”
