Mucha Today

Mucha Today

Posters / Monumental Paintings / Contemporary Art

The exhibition focuses on two main artistic areas in which the world famous Czech painter Alfons Mucha (1860-1939) excelled. It brings together a unique collection of posters, panels, calendars and sample books from the Regional Museum in Chrudim, the core of which was already prudently purchased by the museum curators at the end of the 19th century, i.e., exactly at the time when Mucha made his name in Paris. An important counterweight to the decorative works are the monumental paintings with historical and allegorical subjects, which were created after the Slav Epic and have never been published in a set. Mucha painted them successively between 1933 and 1937, commissioned by Czech institutions based in Rokycany, Nymburk and Most. Into this context then enter the works of today’s artists in six thematically focused sections, who from their own current positions and points of view independently deal with similar issues that once excited also Alfons Mucha. The mutual comparison allows the discovery of new positions of expression and meaning in the work of all those involved and opens up the field for a pluralistic vision. A special place belongs to Tomáš Císařovský who, especially for this exhibition, depicted a large-scale vision of an imaginary friendly meeting between Alfons Mucha and Paul Gauguin in the port of Marseille on 30 August 1893, and with exaggeration pointed out the artist’s determination to follow his dream.