This major retrospective cast a new light on the world-renowned Art Nouveau figure head, famous for his poster designs, book illustrations and jewellery creations.
In addition to his well-known work, the exhibition showcased Mucha's impressive pastels and chalk drawings and his ambitious painting projects addressing religious themes and some of the darker chapters of mankind.
Among the show's highlights were the reconstruction of the Bosnia-Herzegovina pavilion for the Paris World Fair (1900), and the presentation of two monumental paintings from the multi-part Slav Epic (1910-1926). Despite the fact that they represent some of Mucha’s most important achievements, these significant works have so far received too little attention. After he failed to execute his own plans for a "Pavilion of Mankind", Mucha was given the opportunity to contribute monumental wall decorations for the Bosnia-Herzegovina pavilion. On canvases covering more than 250 square meters, he rendered the history of these former Ottoman Empire provinces, which became Austro-Hungarian territory following the 1878 Berlin congress.
Even though Paris was still the world's artistic centre around 1900, Mucha decided to leave France and return to his native country, but not before paying several visits to the United States. Mucha's return home was greeted with a commission from the city of Prague to decorate the Lord Mayor's Hall in the Municipal House "Obecní Dum" (1912). The exhibition also featured painted designs for this decorative program.
With financial support from the American benefactor Charles R. Crane (1858-1939), Mucha was able to realise a painted cycle consisting of 20 enormous canvases depicting Slavic history: the Slav Epic (1910–1926). The retrospective included two of these large canvases, as well as many sketches and preparatory works for the cycle. Not only do these monumental pictures show a new development in Mucha's artistry, they also form a synthesis of all his previous creations and manifest his ideas of the Slavic peoples' role in a European context.