Alphonse Maria Mucha was a Czech Art Nouveau painter and decorative artist, known best for his distinctive style. He produced many drawings, paintings, illustrations, advertisements, postcards, and designs. The Mucha Style became known as Art Nouveau («new art»). Mucha's works frequently featured beautiful young women in flowing, vaguely Neoclassical-looking robes, and often surrounded by lush flowers which sometimes formed halos behind their heads. In contrast with contemporary poster makers he used pale pastel colors. His Art Nouveau style was often imitated. Mucha always insisted that rather than maintaining any fashionable stylistic form, his paintings were entirely a product of himself and Czech art. His Slav Epic was rolled and stored for twenty-five years before being shown in Moravsky Krumlov, and a Mucha museum opened in Prague, managed by his grandson John Mucha. Mucha's work has continued to experience periodic revivals of interest for illustrators and artists.
