Prague. A place devoted to the Czech artist, master of Art Nouveau Alfons Mucha (1860-1939), located in Prague in the Savarin Palace (see ill.), Has just opened its doors on February 24, 2025 with a month’s delay on the initial date. But the spaces provided for the exhibition of “the Slavic epic” should only open … in 2028. This long wait is explained by a series of disputes around this major work of the Czech artist and a conflict with another Mucha museum.
For seventeen years, Alfons Mucha worked to the realization of Slavic epic (1912-1928), a set of 20 large format panels, to donate it to Prague provided that an appropriate place of exhibition is built in the city. But time has passed and the paintings still have no place dedicated to them. The grandson of the artist and initiator of the Mucha Foundation, John Mucha, then began legal proceedings in 2016 against the city of Prague in order to obtain the property of Slavic epic.
The dispute continues until 2021, the date on which the Crestyl group proposes to create an exhibition space in Prague to accommodate the 20 panels, and to cover the development costs. A proposal accepted by John Mucha and the city of Prague. John Mucha then took back his legal action. Crestyl’s proposal was part of the context of “Savarin Project”, a real estate project at 400 million euros in the historic center of Prague. This project includes the restoration of the Baroque Savarin palace by the architect Thomas Heatherwick, in order to install part of the collection of a branch of the Mucha family on a surface of 1,100 m². Exposed objects would narrate the history of the creation of Slavic epic Through studies, posters, photographs, objects and paintings. In the basement of the Savarin project, large spaces are therefore planned for the exhibition of Slavic epic.
The Savarin Palace in Prague, which hosts the new Mucha museum.
© Crestyl
The new museum presents itself as “ The only official museum dedicated to the Czech artist ”. Problem, there has already been a museum in Prague for over twenty-five years, located rue Panská, not far from the Palais Savarin. In 2024, the Mucha foundation broke its contract with the Panská Street Museum and forbidden it to use the Mucha name. However, the small museum, rich in a collection made up by the tennis player of Czechoslovak origin Ivan Lendl with the help of Jiri Mucha (son of the artist), who extends over an area of 500 m2, does not intend to close. “We are today on trial with Mucha Trust on the initiative of the new museum”explained to Journal des Artsits director Sebastian Pawlowski.
And to complicate the situation, here is another branch of the family, the granddaughter of Alfons Mucha, Jamila Mucha Plocková, who cooperates with the first Mucha museum brought legal action, because she does not agree with the planned location of Slavic epic In the underground spaces of the Savarin Palace. She wants, for this set of works, a separate building to be built.
The court will meet again on May 27 to decide on this imbroglio. In the meantime, the cycle of The epic is exhibited at the Château de Moravský Krumlov (see ill.) In South Moravia, since 2021. The deputy mayor of Prague Jirí Pospíšil said that he was planning to extend the loan to the five -year -old castle.
The Mucha Foundation had caressed the idea, ten years ago, to create a Mucha museum in Paris in echo in the Parisian years of the artist who occupied a workshop in the 5th arrondissement, from 1896 to 1904, but the project had not succeeded. In addition, the French had been able to discover the 20 panels of Slavic epicin digital version at the Grand Palais immersive in 2023.
