After ending a long-term agreement with its previous operator, the Mucha Museum, which focuses on Czech artist Alphonse Mucha—a central figure in the Art Nouveau movement—will open a new space near Prague’s historic Old Town Square. The museum will be housed in the recently renovated Savarin Palace, a Baroque building on Na Prikope Street in central Prague. The restoration was carried out by Prague-based real estate developer Crestyl. The new location will feature a collection of Mucha’s works, including lithographs and posters created as promotional materials for plays.
Mucha, best known for his decorative panels and advertisements, gained widespread fame after creating the 1894 poster for the Greek tragedy ‘Gismonda’. The poster featured actress Sarah Bernhardt as its central figure, and its highly stylized design helped solidify Mucha’s reputation in the 1890s while he was working in Paris. His unique style eventually became synonymous with modern design.
The Mucha Foundation and Crestyl announced that the new Savarin project will feature over 1,100 square meters (roughly 12,000 square feet) of exhibition space. Exhibitions will be rotated to showcase Mucha’s profound impact on design and advertising, illustrating how his work influenced imagery during his lifetime and continues to resonate after his death in 1939.
The city of Prague and Mucha’s work were involved in a complex legal dispute in the past. The conflict began when John Mucha, the artist’s grandson and president of the Mucha Foundation—established by the artist’s family in 1992 to promote exhibitions about him—filed a lawsuit against Prague over the relocation of Mucha’s Slav Epic, a 20-panel installation. The dispute centered around ownership rights, stemming from the city’s failure to build a pavilion for the permanent display of the artwork, a condition originally stipulated in Mucha’s donation agreement with Prague.
The Mucha Foundation will relocate its collection to the new Savarin location, which offers a larger floor plan than its previous space on Pánská Street, where the works had been housed since 1998.
Marcus Mucha, the artist’s great-grandson and executive director of the foundation, told ‘The Art Newspaper’ that the foundation severed its official ties with the former operator of the Pánská location after ending their agreement in May. He further emphasized that any exhibitions or activities related to Mucha at that location are unauthorized.
