Customer Reviews (4)

Good, but could be better
The Mucha images are beautiful, but are a bit small for the overall size of the calendar.

ok
Product came very late and also had a tear in the corner of all the calendar pages.

12 languorous Art Nouveau ladies by Alphonse Mucha
My niece, a freshman art major is going through an Art Nouveau phase and asked for an Alphonse Mucha poster for Christmas.I thought she might like this calendar even better, as it has 12 of Mucha's languishing portraits of ladies, most of them advertising such items as Sarah Bernhardt plays, champagne, and beer.

Each month displays a separate 11.6" x 11.6" color picture above a calendar grid.Opened up on a wall, the calendar is roughly 1 foot wide and 2 feet long.

Alphonse Mucha was born in 1860 in Ivancice, Moravia, which is near the city of Brno in the modern Czech Republic, but spent his creative years in Paris just as Art Nouveau was embracing Europe's new industrial aesthetic. It featured naturalistic but stylized forms, often combined with more geometric shapes as in the paintings of Alphonse Mucha or Gustav Klimt. The movement also produced useful or wearable art as evidenced by Lalique jewelry or Tiffany lamps.Mucha himself designed advertising posters and stage sets, so I'm sure he would approve of this useful and beautiful presentation of his art.

Worth the expense and difficulty to find this
Not art quality prints or anything, But good quality posters with a generious buffer between the picture and the calander at the bottom. The only down side is that its a bit hard to figure out what day of the week a date is i.e its not formatted like most calendars. But if you are buying this you probably aren't buying it to write your appointments on anyway. Some of the colors are a bit duller that I would prefer, but I haven't seen art quality copies of originals to know which version brighter or duller more earthtone tinted are truer to the artists concept. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

If only someone had offered this book uncut, rather than 40 plates....
This book has 40 selected (I would not have necessarily selected the ones the publisher chose) plates from Mucha's alleged magnum opus, Ilsee, Princesse de Tripoli. If this had been offered in its entirety, or even better, with translated or at least untranslated text, it would be worth every penny, and a great deal more. If you buy anold used copy for the pittance I got mine, you won't be too disappointed, but this book is really a tease even for a die hard Mucha fan. ... Read more

Product Description
Clean, tight book. Exhibition catalogue. Large Picture Book No 18. Essay and B/W plates. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Enjoyable bio by his biggest fan --
-- his son, Jiri. This isn't really a full biography, but a precis of his career. Notes by additional authors, Aaron Scharf and Marina Henderson, fill in facts about Paris in the 1890s and early 20th century, about his use of photographic references, and about an important series of partiotic paintings.

Mucha was a wonderful and influential artist, and practically claimed the Art Noveau movement as his own creation. That claim, of course, is overblown, but excessive claims take nothing away from the real value of his graceful, idealized figures.

This book is expecially interesting for its recovery of some of the photographic references and sketches, preparatory to his finished works. This book is an artifact of its time (1974), however. The color reproductions may have aged, and printing processes have certainly improved since this was printed. Even the B&W picures (about 120 of the 160 here) lack sharpness, in many cases.

Even so, the artwork is enjoyable, the hero-worship is fun, and the text supports the illustration fairly well. It's certainly not a catalog of Mucha's vast ouvre, but sure to be of interest to anyone who enjoys Mucha's work, Art Nouveau, or the intellectual ferment of that time and place.

//wiredweird, reviewing the second edition ... Read more

Product Description
renderings by Ed Sibbett, Jr. of Alphonse Mucha's spectacularly sensuous designs. Art Nouveau nymphs and goddesses, highly designed borders, stars, exotic ornaments. Printed in brown ink to capture lines of originals. 4 plates in color on covers.
... Read more

Customer Reviews (9)

A Little Treasure
I got this colouring book as a child and am so pleased to see it is still available.It may dissapoint those who are looking for prints of Muchas work but for children aged eleven and up it is both fun and inspiring to be able to choose your own colours.This introduced me to a love of Mucha and the Art Nouveau era in general.

And who says adults can't enjoy colouring books too !

it's a coloring book
i suppose i should have figured it out from the title, but it is in fact a coloring book.it's not, what i thought, a book of colorful mucha figures.get some crayons, or paint or whatever, and have at it.

An adult colouring book! A treat for tattooists and kids at heart
Shame on those giving this a poor review because they failed to read the description. A review should be based on what the product is, and not what they thought it might be. Mucha's intricate work is so highly detailed I could never hope to draw anything like it, but it gives me great satisfaction to colour these fine line drawings. For those seeking a Mucha tattoo this is an excellent reference to bring to the studio because an artist will add to detail and shading to the line drawings provided!

Line drawing tracings of Mucha originals
If you are looking for a book of Mucha's work as he did it, look elsewhere. This book is an artist's renditions, or, more crudely, tracings, of ~37 Mucha works. It seems other reviewers weren't expecting this. The drawings could be useful for some applications; I have seen Mucha's work copied at street-painting festivals, and I think this book would be helpful to one replicating the work in such a way. I can also see this book used as a coloring book for an older child who is interested in art (although, note there is partial female nudity).

The works represented spans his poster work, advertising pieces, and decorative pieces, produced from 1896-1905.

Again, if you want colorful Mucha work, try another book. One example is Alphonse Mucha, by Sarah Mucha. Dover press produces many wonderful books, so you are are bound to find more than one to suit your desires.

fantastic!
as an art student i LOVE Mucha's work, and while searching for full color printed books on his art, i discovered this fun little item. the renderings of his art are very well done, hours of fun when you feel like being a kid again! defenatly more of a novelty or adult coloring book, but i know plenty of adults who still enjoy coloring. as an artist myself it seems a bit silly to use a coloring book, but what artist doesnt want to recreate the masterpeices of their idols in a fun, stress free way? ... Read more