Parisian posters (Sarah Bernhardt)

The posters made for Sarah Bernhardt form the bestknown and world famous segment of Mucha’s work. It was through them that he managed to promote his own version of the new decorative style.

The first of these, created at very turn of 1894 and 1895, portrayed Bernhardt starring in the role of Gismonda.

Sarah Bernhardt was delighted with the poster and immediate offered Mucha a five year contract to produce stage and costume designs as well as posters. At the same time he signed an exclusive contract with the printer Champenois to produce commercial and decorative posters.

His artistic revolution brought a certain new elegance to the hitherto highly colourful “street salon”, thus increasing the newly found importance of the poster for modern art.