The Slav Epic - Background

Background

Mucha spent many years working on The Slav Epic cycle, which he considered his life's fine art masterpiece. He had dreamed of completing a series such as this, a celebration of Slavic history, since the turn of the 19th century, however, his plans were limited by financial constraints. In 1909, he managed to obtain grants by an American philanthropist and a keen admirer of the Slavic culture, Charles Richard Crane. He began by visiting the places which he intended to depict in the cycle, such as Russia, Poland and the Balkans, including the Orthodox monasteries of Mount Athos. Additionally, he consulted historians about the details of historical events in order to ensure an accurate depiction. In 1910, he rented a part of the castle in Zbiroh and began working on the series.

Mucha continued working on the cycle for 18 years. He gradually handed over the finished paintings to the city of Prague. In 1919, the first part of the series, comprising eleven canvases, was displayed in the Prague's Clementinum. In 1921, five of the paintings were shown in New York and Chicago to the great acclaim of the audience.

After finishing the work in 1928, the complete cycle was displayed in the Trade Fair Palace in Prague. It was the first exhibition of the work in the Czechoslovak capital.

Alfons Mucha died in July, 1939. Shortly before his death he was interrogated by Gestapo as an important exponent of public life in Czechoslovakia. During World War II, the Slav Epic was wrapped and hidden away to prevent seizure by the Nazis.

Following the Czechoslovak coup d'état of 1948 and subsequent communist takeover of the country, Mucha was considered a decadent and bourgeois artist, estranged from the ideas of socialist realism. The building of a special pavilion for the exposition of the cycle became irrelevant and unimportant for the new regime. After the war, the paintings were moved to Moravský Krumlov by a group of local patriots. The cycle went on display in the chateau in 1963.