Death Anniversary: Alphonse Mucha — July 14, 1939

Alphonse Mucha died in Prague on 14 July 1939, a few months after the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia: questioned by the Gestapo over his part in Czech national culture, he came out of it physically broken. He left a double body of work — the posters and decorative panels that had defined international Art Nouveau, and the Slav Epic, the great patriotic cycle of his last years. The anniversary marks that arc, from icon of Parisian modernity to painter of Slav memory.