Alphonse Mucha: star of the Art Nouveau movement

The Art Show

This week it's The Art (Nouveau) Show! Flowers, peacocks and sensuous drapes. Bejewelled women entwined in billowing hair and that classic black outline, that turns the dreamy into the bold – the NEW. Despite what we may think about the arts and crafts that came out of Belgium, France and Czechia at the turn of the nineteenth century, Art Nouveau was considered to be an ultra-modern aesthetic.

One artist who defined the style is Alphonse Mucha. We hear from Mucha's great-grandson Marcus Mucha and Mucha Foundation curator Tomoko Sato, at the Art Gallery of New South Wales exhibition Alphonse Mucha: Spirit of Art Nouveau.

In South Australia artists like Maude Vizard-Wholohan were part of a newly empowered generation of female art school graduates who produced Art Nouveau designs while living in the first Australian state where women could vote (and the third in the world). Rebecca Evans is curator of design and decorative arts at the Art Gallery of South Australia, and traces the legacy of these artists.

This first went to air Wed 19 Jun 2024