Mucha artistry on display at Cedar Rapids museum

CEDAR RAPIDS — When your museum is launching its 50th anniversary celebration, you need something golden on its walls.

And when you find out an Alphonse Mucha exhibition is on a multiyear tour, you file your request three years out, in hopes no one else claims your coveted summer 2024 time slot.

The National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library’s wish was granted.

“Alphonse Mucha: Master of Art Nouveau,” an international traveling exhibition, will be on view through Sept. 1 in the Petrik Gallery. The pieces are from the Dhawan Collection in Los Angeles, which is considered one of the finest private collections of Mucha’s works in the United States.

It paints a lovely parallel to the huge Mucha exhibition, which drew viewers near and far to the museum’s new site after the 2008 flood forced moving the massive structure to higher ground.

That earlier 230-piece collection remains one of the facility’s largest and most popular exhibitions. Museum curator Stefanie Kohn traveled to Prague in July 2011 to meet with Mucha Foundation Curator Tomoko Sato to choose items for that custom display.

“That was an incredible way to open up the building in 2012,” Kohn said. “And that was actually in our 7,000-square-foot gallery, the Jiruska Gallery, which is now our permanent exhibition.”

She called it a “once in a lifetime” opportunity to use that huge gallery, since it was destined to house the museum’s permanent display, and temporary exhibits like this year’s Mucha, would go to the nearby smaller galleries.

The 2012 Mucha exhibit “was really well received,” said Kohn, who has been with the museum for 25 years. “We had a lot of visitors — people curious about how we came back from the flood, but also, Mucha is a big draw, no matter what had been going on in the background in Cedar Rapids. We had people coming from all over the country to see that exhibit. We’re expecting the same thing (again). Mucha is a draw.”

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Designing history

The Czech artist, born July 24, 1860, in Moravia, is considered the father of Art Nouveau, originally deemed “Mucha style,” popular at the turn of the 20th century. He found his biggest fame from designing posters advertising artists and productions in Paris, with gorgeous, intricate swoops of muted colors framing the central figure.

A favorite subject was Sarah Bernhardt, and her image graced numerous posters, including several that are the largest pieces in this exhibition, Kohn noted.

“She was the most famous actress of the day, and he was commissioned in Paris to create a poster for a play of hers,” Kohn said. “This was an instant sensation, so she had him under contract to do more posters for her. ... That’s something that appears in a lot of Mucha shows.”

But he also designed currency, advertisements for cigarette papers, book illustrations, and images on a Whitman’s chocolates tin and an eau de toilette bottle, also on view in the museum exhibit.

“He just was creating beautiful images to go on these everyday items,” Kohn said.

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All embody an art movement “which was really interested in nature and curvy lines and beautiful women — and that style really caught on,” Kohn said.

The style fell out of favor in the 1920s or ’30s, she added, but enjoyed a renaissance a few decades later.

“A lot of people have seen this type or the style reproduced, like on album covers and T-shirts and posters and things from the 1960s, because it looked very psychedelic and cool,” Kohn said.

It’s the style replicated in the huge outdoor mural welcoming visitors to Czech Village, facing Inspiration Place SW, the road leading to the museum.

Mucha’s posters were “instrumental” in making graphic design legitimate art, Kohn added.

“It was art that was accessible to the people, because there were posters all over Paris advertising plays and advertising products,” she noted. “They were so beautiful that they were sometimes just stolen right off the walls and off the pillars. Mucha was very happy about that — that this was a way to bring art into just anyone’s home, because anybody can buy a poster. If you can’t buy a painting, you can buy a poster, so he was really important in that sense, too.”

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Homeland connections

Paris was the center of the art world at the time, and Mucha won a lot of awards there, Kohn said. But he remained devoted to his homeland.

“He was very much influenced by his Slavic roots,” she said, “and he was very patriotic and nationalistic, and really was interested in the Slav story in history — not just of Czechs, but Slovaks, Russians — all Slav people. That appears in his art, too.”

Viewers will see a woman in a traditional Moravian folk dress, which hearkens to his heritage.

“You’re shaped by all the stories and mythology that you hear when you’re a kid,” Kohn said. “ ... And Mucha was surrounded by all this beautiful folk art and folk tales and legends of the Slavs, and it comes out in his art. ...

“We’re interested in him as a Czech first and foremost — that he’s the most well-known Czech artist in the world,” she added. “But also, of course, it’s wonderful that the whole world recognizes his talent and his contribution to art history, as well.”

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Preparations

To prepare for mounting the exhibition in the Petrik Gallery, the walls were painted a sage green and muted neutral colors to both complement and reflect Mucha’s palette. That’s a common practice, Kohn said, adding that for a Mardi Gras exhibit, they used purple, green and gold, and in another gallery, they used red and blue to coincide with the Czech flag colors of red, white and blue. If black is more appropriate to make the art stand out, they’ll drape the walls with black fabric.

A week before the Mucha opening, Tricia Bender, the museum’s artifact collections manager and traveling exhibit coordinator, was working alongside Kohn, and enjoying the process of getting the artwork on the walls and 3D pieces in protective cases.

“It’s so much fun. I love these,” Bender said. “Honestly, installing any exhibit is one of the favorite parts of my job, but I really like everything I do.” She even enjoyed painting the walls.

Having blockbusters can be a heavy lift financially, and while Kohn declined to say how much the museum is paying to bring this exhibition to Cedar Rapids, she noted that shipping is the biggest expense. Grants and corporate and private donations are covering the expenses.

“We got some grant money from Inspire Iowa, which was specifically funding projects, like programs and exhibits, that you think are going to bring tourists to Iowa,” she said.

“You can’t have a blockbuster every year, but something like Mucha is definitely a blockbuster for us, where we put a lot of resources into it, a lot of thought, and just really hope that it brings us a lot of visitors — our old friends and make some new friends, too, because they’ll come to see this.

“You don’t have to be Czech or Slovak to love Mucha,” Kohn said, “so you’ll come see it for its own sake. We’re just glad to be able to bring it to Iowa.”

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