Drawing

c. 1899 – 1900

A trip to the Balkans for sketches

As soon as the project was accepted, Mucha left for the Balkans to sketch costumes, ceremonies and architecture, which he put into his work for the pavilion.

1900

Exhibition: Exposition Universelle of 1900

1900

Sarah Bernhardt defends his Czech origins

His foreign name caused much speculation in the French press, which distressed him; Sarah Bernhardt declared in La France that Mucha was a Czech from Moravia not only by birth and origin but also by feeling, conviction and patriotism.

1902

“Documents décoratifs” is published

The Central Library of Fine Arts published his book of seventy-two watercolour plates with designs for brooches and other pieces, with arabesques, vegetal forms and incrustations of enamel and coloured stones, showing how floral and natural forms could be used in decoration.

March 1904

First trip to the U.S.: New York

In March 1904 Mucha sailed for New York, where he was already a celebrity, his posters having been displayed during Sarah Bernhardt’s annual U.S. tours; he rented a studio near Central Park, made portraits, gave interviews and lectures and returned to Paris at the end of May. The aim of his trips was to find funding for “The Slav Epic”, conceived during the 1900 Exposition; he carried letters of introduction from Baroness Salomon de Rothschild.

1904–1909

Meeting his patron Charles Crane

At a Pan-Slavic banquet in New York City he met Charles Richard Crane, a wealthy businessman and philanthropist and a passionate Slavophile who shared his enthusiasm for a series of monumental paintings on Slavic history and became Mucha’s most important patron.