An exhibition featuring the works of the artist credited with inspiring the Art Nouveau movement opens Sunday, January 14, at The Hyde Collection. Alphonse Mucha: Master of Art Nouveau includes more than seventy works drawn from the Dhawan Collection of Los Angeles, California, one of the most significant private collections of Muchas work in the United States. The exhibition examines how Muchas work helped shape the aesthetics of French Art Nouveau at the turn of the century. Art Nouveau, or New Art, describes a style in architecture, and visual and decorative arts that flourished from the 1890s through 1910. It emphasized the beauty of natural forms in everyday life. Art Nouveau featured a sinuous or whiplash line, flattened space, and botanical shapes and patterns. Muchas early work is centered on the epitome of beauty, said Jonathan Canning,
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