Jean-Michel Folon was born in 1934 in Belgium and died in 2005. He used a wide variety of media in his work, which includes watercolors, printmaking, sculpture, animation, wallpaper designs, painting, designing stamps and stage sets. His initial training was as an architect, but he abandoned his studies in the mid-1950s and moved to Paris. He stood out with his work as an illustrator, famous for creating characters with lost expressions on their faces, floating in baren landscapes or in oppressive urban spaces. His illustrations questioned Western society, which was in line with the spirit of the decade. Folon worked for magazines such as Esquire, The New Yorker, Time and Le Nouvel Observateur. He has worked extensively with his friend, Milton Glaser. In France, he made his mark on the world of television with his opening and closing sequence for channel Antenne 2, in collaboration with composer Michel Colombier, broadcast between 1975 and 1984. He has exhibited worldwide, from Japan to Australia, most notably in the Grand Palais in Paris and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The artist has its own museum, the “Folon Foundation,” which he founded himself in 2000 in Belgium.
