MAIN SPRING EXHIBITION

Alphonse mucha
In the vortex of Art Nouveau

2nd February – 29th April 2007

The first-ever full-length presentation in Sweden of the world-famous Czech Art Nouveau artist Alphonse Mucha (1860–1939). It says something about Mucha’s importance to his contemporaries that the style now known as Art Nouveau or Jugend was for many years referred to in France as le style Mucha. Mucha took Paris by storm overnight in 1895 with his posters for the Divine Sarah Bernhardt, and he went on to capture the hearts of Parisians with his art generally.

It was above all his posters, with their coiling, winding decorative elements, based often on vegetative motifs, that impacted on the aesthetic of Art Nouveau. His posters are milestones in the history of modern graphic art and in our own time, for example, have left their mark on psychedelic poster art. But this exhibition also includes examples of his visionary painting and of the incredibly opulent jewellery he created, in collaboration with the leading Parisian jewellers of the day, much of it for his wife.

Ever the patriot, in 1910 Mucha returned to his Czech homeland, actively supporting its bid for independence. He portrayed Czech and Slavonic history in a series of huge paintings entitled The Slav Epic. Today Mucha ranks as something of a Czech national artist.

This exhibition has been produced by the Mucha Foundation in association with the Amos Anderson Art Museum in Helsinki, and, needless to say, most of the works included are not normally shown to the public.