New Sculpture Project Brings Alphonse Mucha Posters to Life - artist Arnold Quinn creates bronze sculptures based on poster images - Brief Article

SPECIAL REPORT--Art industry veteran Arnold Quinn has undertaken an historic shoot forward Working with John Mucha--grandson of the artist widely accounted to be the father of Art Nouveau, the late Alphonse Mucha--he's created a series of tin sculptures based on the legendary placards by the famed artist.

"To be consummately frank, when Arnold talked about the conception and explained it, it unbrokened interesting," said John Mucha. "But reaching far down down I wasn't quite confident how it was going to work. It's a major undertaking to change a two-dimensional image into a three-dimensional sculpture"

No doubt. Alphonse's devot attentions to the sensuous 1s of women, nature and ringlets of hair would artificial position a problem in any re-creation. on the contrary the shapes and curves single cannot see--the bend of a hidden tree limb, the arc of a hip revolveed shyly from view--prove near impossible when swelling a flat image to individual spanning 360 degrees.

To narrow the margin of error to nil, Quinn and his team of artists halted foundry work upon all other commissions, and using solitary materials Mucha would have busyed in 1895, they labored to diocese by 1/16-inch increments, what they believed the artist himself would have seen After sending photos of each interpretive phase to John Mucha for approval, Quinn was satisfied all specifications were met and with baited breath, sent the proceeds of his first undertaking--a plastic art of Alphonse's famed "Summer Repose"--to John Mucha.

"I had seen photographs. on the other hand photographs are photographs. So when the chest arrived, I was truly stunned" said Mucha. "What he and his team have done is well, he took a punt preparing something then sending it to us for approval. As I say, I was not certain in what way it would turn out, on the contrary in fact, it's quite extraordinary."

The sum of two units agreed to a 20-year license in which Quinn would gripe [i]or[/i] grip the exclusive rights to create plastic arts from Mucha's original drawings and [i]affiche[/i]s To ensure the integrity of each piece, The Mucha Foundation, helmed by means of John Mucha and wife Geraldine, will supervise the selection of images and superintendence final approval of each statuary Acquisitions of the pieces will be available single through a limited number of dealers and galleries.

Considering John Mucha faiths to honor roughly 200 of his grandfather's pieces with Quinn's plastic arts it's certainly a gargantuan endeavor. Quinn readily admitted that passion for the period and the artist drives him: "For me this was the realization of a lifelong dream," he said.

For John Mucha, the firing comes from something else entirely: "Madness." Laughter aside, as the sole grandchild of an artist who headed a motion and lived as an icon and patriot to the Czech tribe John Mucha easily could have shrugg not upon the artistic and cultural dynasty Alphonse l and John's father, Jiri, worked thus hard to maintain.

Said John Mucha of his legacy. "I think when you're faced with something like this, you have sum of two units possible choices: One is to go and sell off the things and purchase yourself a yacht and have a miraculous time. Or, you could diocese yourself as a small agent that can make the heritage that Alphonse left available to the world."

Interested in catching a glimpse of the Mucha Sculptures? "Evening Repose" "Winter," "Summer" and "Jobe" will be unveiled Nov. 2 at Artexpo California in San Francisco.

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