Jean Michel Folon
( Belgian, 1934-2005 )
 

Currently featuring 6 works, please scroll down.






Libre
Inventory # 48115

Original color aquatint on wove paper with full margins. Hand signed by the artist in pencil,"Folon" lower right and numbered "39/90", lower left margin.

Framed size: 24 3/16" x 28 1/4"







Hier, 1979-80
Inventory # 49030

Original color aquatint on wove paper with full margins.  Hand signed and dated in blue colored pencil, lower margin.  A "Bon a Tirer" impression from the portfolio of 4 aquatints titled: "Jeux de Main".

Image size: 12" x 15"

Catalogue reference: Corner, Venice, 1985-86, No.180; Mainich Communications, 1985, No.55.







Plate 1 from "Pluies de New York" suite (Taxis & Fog), 1984

Inventory # 39357

Original etching and color aquatint. Hand signed by the artist "Folon" in pencil, lower right, and numbered "38/99" in pencil, lower left.

Image size: 15" x 14"; Sheet size: 25 3/4" x 20 1/16"








Plate from "Pluies de New York" suite (Street Worker & Steam), 1984
Inventory # 39358

Etching and color aquatint. Hand signed by the artist in pencil, "Folon" lower right. Numbered "38/99" in pencil, lower left.

Image size: 15" x 14"; Sheet size: 25 3/4” x 20 1/16”








Autumn Leaves, 1975

Inventory # 42453

Original serigraph in colors on Arches wove paper with full margins. Hand signed by the artist "Folon" in pencil, at lower right, and marked: "EA VI/XV" at lower left (aside from the regular edition of 150). Published by Alice Editions, with their blindstamp in the paper.

Image: 20" 1/2 x 28 3/8"; Sheet: 29 1/2" x 36 1/4"

Catalogue reference: Mainichi Communications, Tokyo 1985, No. 137


 


L'Inconnu, 1981
( The Unknown )
Inventory # 45609

Original etching and aquatint in colors on wove paper with full margins. Hand signed "Folon" in pencil, lower right, and numbered: "44/90" at lower left.

Image: 6 3/16" x 4 11/16"; Sheet: 13" x 9 11/16"

Catalogue reference: Mainichi 71, Firenze 46



Folon Biography

Jean-Michel Folon was born in Brussels in 1934. He grew up in a modest bourgeois family where his father was a wholesale paper dealer. Young Jean-Michel loved to draw and showed a strong desire to be an artist. His father however thought being an artist was impractical and enrolled his son in the architecture program at Ecole Saint-Luc in Brussels. According to Folon, he "spent the next four years drawing bricks" and left the school just six months before he was to receive his diploma.

In 1955, he hitchhiked to Paris with nothing but a small blue bag and his drawing materials. He lived with a friend's aunt just outside Paris and spent the next four years drawing. He began using pen and ink but soon transitioned to watercolor because of the lovely effect of light and transparency that could be produced in that medium.

Folon is best known for his imaginary landscapes and cityscapes peopled with little hatted men, robots or a wind up toy. Innocent, dreamlike and whimsical his work aims to speak to the child that lingers in every adult. Folon's universal appeal is perhaps due to the nuanced temperature of his colors and the comical characters that ponder man's predicament, depicting human feelings such as love, loss, loneliness, joy, and hope.

Folon's work has appeared on the cover of several internationally renown magazines such as Time, The New Yorker, L'Express, Graphis and Le Nouvel Observateur. He has illustrated literary works by Lewis Carroll, Jorge Luis Borges, Ray Bradbury, and Franz Kafka. His watercolors, graphic works, and drawings have been exhibited through out the world including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, London's Institute of Contemporary Arts and innumerous galleries in France, Italy and Japan. Folon has designed sets for major opera and theater productions. In addition he has created his own films and animated shows for French television. Folon iconic images have been used as posters for commercial advertisements, the bicentennial of the French Revolution, and for non-profit campaigns such as UNICEF, Greenpeace, and Amnesty International.

In 1985 he moved to Monaco to work in a large workshop surrounded by numerous artists. Around 1988 he created his first sculptures made out of wood. From then on moved on creating sculptures in clay, plaster, bronze and marble, while continuing painting. Jean-Michel Folon died on October 20, 2005 in Monaco, at the age of 71.

 




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