SwissArtGallery · Documented identity
From ink drawings to illustrated books, television title sequences and works in bronze, stained glass or ceramics, Jean-Michel Folon worked across a range of media. His career thus brought press illustration together with projects for publishing, television and public spaces. After studying architecture at École Saint-Luc, he enrolled in industrial design at École supérieure des Arts visuels de La Cambre in 1954. In 1955, he left for France and settled in Bougival, near Paris. For five years, he drew every day and worked as a press illustrator for Belgian and French magazines.
From 1960 onwards, American magazines published his drawings, including Horizon, Esquire, The New Yorker, Fortune, Atlantic Monthly and Time. In the early 1960s, he travelled to New York and met Saul Steinberg, who had a strong influence on his work at that time and encouraged him to discover the work of Paul Klee. Until around 1965, he worked exclusively in India ink on white paper. In 1969, he exhibited for the first time in New York, at the Lefebre Gallery, and then exhibited at the Il Milione gallery in Milan. He took part in the Venice Biennale in 1970 and won the grand prize at the São Paulo Biennial in 1973.
The illustration of literary texts occupies an important place in his work. He illustrated, among other works, Kafka’s The Metamorphosis and Borges’s The Circular Ruins, as well as works by Apollinaire, Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles and the complete works of Jacques Prévert. In 1973, he also created The Death of a Tree, a text that he wrote and illustrated himself. For television, he created the opening and closing title sequences for Antenne 2 programmes, broadcast daily from 1976 to 1983.
His work also includes different forms and materials: in 1997, he installed on Knokke beach a bronze figure, The Sea, This Great Sculptor, covered by the tides. He designed cartoons for stained-glass windows for chapels in Mont-Agel in 1992, Burcy in 1997 and Pisa in 1998. In 2002, he began working with ceramics and conceived a hot-air balloon. A retrospective was presented in Tokyo, Osaka and Kamakura in 1985. In 2000, the Fondation Folon opened in a scenography designed by the artist. His last retrospective took place at the Palazzo Vecchio and the Forte di Belvedere in Florence in 2005. Folon died in Monaco on 20 October of the same year, aged 71.
This profile brings together identity references for Jean-Michel Folon and paintings, drawings and works on paper documented in auction catalogues.
Genève Enchères · DognyAuction · Piguet
References include catalogue entries and available results; they do not all represent completed sales. Attributed works and special lots are excluded from the priced results.
huile et collage d'éléments en carton, bois et divers matériaux, signé
Marine
huile et collage d'éléments en carton, bois et divers matériaux, signé
Catalogue period : 2022-09-21
Published result : 4500 CHF
Fees not specified in the available data
Estimate : CHF 3000–5000
View the lot at the auction house ↗
Watercolour
Sans titre
aquarelle
Catalogue period : 2018-12-13
Published result : 2600 CHF
Fees not specified in the available data
Estimate : CHF 1000–1500
View the lot at the auction house ↗
crayon et num en bg 28/150
Sans titre
crayon et num en bg 28/150
Date to be documented
Published result : 62 CHF
Fees not specified in the available data
View the lot at the auction house ↗
Watercolour
Voilier au couchant
aquarelle
Catalogue period : 2014-12-10
Published result : 1300 CHF
Fees not specified in the available data
Estimate : CHF 300–500
View the lot at the auction house ↗
Watercolour
L'amour
aquarelle
Catalogue period : 2014-12-10
Published result : 4500 CHF
Fees not specified in the available data
Estimate : CHF 600–800
View the lot at the auction house ↗
Watercolour
"L'Automne"
aquarelle
Catalogue period : 2024-12-11
Published result : 6000 CHF
Fees not specified in the available data
Estimate : CHF 5000–7000
View the lot at the auction house ↗SwissArtGallery documentary note based on the cited sources. Titles, media and qualifications are provided in the profile language; the original catalogue wording remains available in each record.
Profile updated :
Recently enriched profiles
The Greek painter Yánnis Spyrópoulos, born in 1912 and deceased in 1990, developed his painting from naturalism towards abstraction, before shifting his interest to the image itself…
2 auction referencesBorn in Saint-Jean, Newfoundland, in 1898, Robert Wakeham Pilot made the territory of Quebec a favourite subject: his landscapes are set in places including the Laurentians, the Baie…
1 auction referenceLéopold Gottlieb began his training at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków, where he studied painting from 1896 to 1902 under Jacek Malczewski and Théodor Axentowicz. At the end of th…
1 auction reference