Mucha: Art Nouveau

Well, Caroline asked for more Mucha and I was going to make this post anyways but it was too late last night.
Alfons Mucha (male Caroline) was born in Ivančice, Moravia on the 24th of July 1860. Ivancice, Moravia was a region in today's Czech Republic. Mucha started out painting theatrical sets while studying art. When a fire destroyed his employer's buissness in 1881 he returned to Moravia to do freelance decorative and portrait painting.
Count Karl Khuen of Mikulov hired him to decorate Hrušovany Emmahof Castle with murals and was very much impressed that he agreed to sponser his education at Munich Academy of Fine Arts. Mucha moved to Paris in 1887, and continued his studies at Académie Julian and Académie Colarossi while also making advertisments and illustrations for a magazine. One day he just so happened to be in print shop when there was a sudden demand for a poster to advertise a play that Sarah Bernhardt was in. Bernhardt was a highly famous french actress and considered "the most famous actress in the world" by whom I havent any idea....
The play was at the Theatre de la Renaissance. Mucha volunteered to produce a lithographed poster within two weeks, and on January 1st, 1865, the advertisment for Gismonda appeared on the streets. Bernhardt was so impressed with the posters that she made a 6 year contract with Mucha. He produced many paintings and designs for jewlery, carpets, theatrical sets and wallpaper. People called his art Mucha Style but it became known as Art Nouveau.
He typically painted portraits of women usually in Neoclassical looking robes and with haloes above there heads. I made a slide show of only some of his art.