Editing Alphonse Mucha (section)

==Last years and death==
In the political turmoil of the 1930s, Mucha's work received little attention in Czechoslovakia. However, in 1936 a major retrospective was held in Paris at the [[Jeu de Paume (museum)]], with 139 works, including three canvases from the Slav Epic.{{Sfn|Sato|2015|page=90}}

[[Adolf Hitler]] and [[Nazi Germany]] began to threaten Czechoslovakia in the 1930s. Mucha began work on a new series, a triptych depicting the Age of Reason, the Age of Wisdom and the Age of Love, which he worked on from 1936 to 1938, but never completed. On 15 March 1939, the German army paraded through Prague, and Hitler, at Prague castle, declared lands of the former Czechoslovakia to be part of the Greater German Reich as the [[Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia]]. Mucha's role as a Slav nationalist and [[Freemason]] made him a prime target.<ref name="SlavEcicOwn">{{cite news|title=Who owns Alphonse Mucha's Slav Epic?|url=https://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2016/12/heiring-grievances?fsrc=scn/tw_ec/who_owns_alphonse_mucha_s_slav_epic_|access-date=8 December 2016|newspaper=[[The Economist]]|date=6 December 2016}}</ref> He was arrested, interrogated for several days, and released. By then his health was broken. He contracted pneumonia and died on 14 July 1939, 10 days short of his 79th birthday and over a month before the outbreak of [[World War II]]. Though public gatherings were banned, a huge crowd attended his interment in the [[Slavín (Prague)|Slavín]] Monument of [[Vyšehrad Cemetery]], reserved for notable figures in Czech culture.{{Sfn|Sato|2015|pages=90–91}}