Jean-Michel Folon was born in Uccle on the 1st of March 1934. From 1960 onwards, his artistic career took on an international dimension when several newspapers and magazines brought his cartoons into the public eye. Multi-talented, Folon is a cartoonist and sculptor, has illustrated the books of his favourite writers (Kafka, Borges, Vian, Prévert), participated in poster campaigns for the causes that are close to his heart, designed the credits of Antenne 2, painted brilliant works and decorated metro stations. His watercolours, his posters and his sculptures have been exhibited throughout the world and will one day be brought together at the Foundation that he created in 2000 on the farm of the estate of La Hulpe (Walloon Brabant).

At the age of 21, Jean-Michel Folon dropped his architecture studies and left Brussels to devote himself to drawing. From the 60s onwards, various American magazines such as "Esquire", "The New Yorker" and "Time" started to publish his cartoons. He also began to illustrate his favourite authors: Kafka, Bradbury, Apollinaire, Prévert, Vian, Maupassant and Camus. He designed his first mural for the French pavilion at the style exhibition Triennale di Milano in 1968 and created an end of year book for The New York Museum of Modern Art.

From 1969 onwards, exhibitions of his work were being organised all over the world. In 1974, he produced ten etchings and aquatints for "The circular ruins" by Jorge Luis Borges, as well as Magic City, a painting of 165 m² to cover a space in the new Brussels metro. He repeated the exercise the following year by decorating Waterloo Station in London. In 1981, he desgined the backdrops for works by Frank Martin and Giacomo Puccini performed at the Grand Théâtre in Geneva and created projected images for "Histoire du Soldat" by Igor Stravinsky, at the Théâtre de la Vie in Brussels. Two years later, he launched himself into animation and produced short films in New York, Los Angeles and New Orleans.

At the end of the 80s Folon took on the world of wood sculpture while continuing to create posters, in particular for Amnesty International. He also designed the initials for the Bicentenary of the French Revolution. In 1990 an exhibition of watercolours and engravings was organised at the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art, which also saw the unveiling of his first transformed objects. He sculpted characters in earth and in plaster and created his first bronze pieces. During an exhibition at the Casino in Knokke-le-Zoute in 1997, he installed a bronze sculpture in front of the sea that the water covers at each high tide. Later, "Voler", a 3 metre high bronze sculpture, was installed at the international airport of Brussels. In 2000, the artist created the Folon Foundation. The former Solvay estate in La Hulpe offers the ideal backdrop for his works, evoking as they do trees, birds and nature.

From http://www.belgium.be/

e-mail : fondation.folon@skynet.be