“Je me souviens” 15 years ago…
Galerie Bartoux Monaco is proud and happy to be able to present to the public, on the occasion of the 15th anniversary of the death of Master Jean-Michel Folon, a marvellous collection of thirteen original bronze sculptures.
On this occasion, Galerie Bartoux Monaco wishes to reaffirm its support for the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation by offering a major work which will be auctioned to endorse the Foundation’s actions.
A gesture that would have been appreciated by Jean-Michel Folon who loved Monaco, the Sea and Nature so much.
In 1975, French viewers discovered the credits of the national TV Antenne 2. Accompanied by the music of Michel Colombier, a young Belgian designer, Jean-Michel Folon, makes flying drawings of men wearing hats. The artist, who had already exhibited in the USA and Japan, was then becoming famous among the French public.
Born in Uccle in 1934, Jean-Michel Folon built up his graphic vocabulary very early on. A very coherent vocabulary, which he reused throughout his career. He used to say that he just tried to materialise his dreams, hoping that others would be able to reflect their dreams on his.
He first worked on drawing before discovering watercolour, a technique which allows him to better express his invitation to dream in the best possible way ; Jean-Michel Folon often said that he “put his dreams in watercolour”.
Folon became a world-famous painter, draughtsman and illustrator. His universe, populated by men in hats and mackintoshes, anti-heroes par excellence, but also birds taking flight, or boats with all their sails spread out on the horizon, ensured him worldwide fame. History will remember that he even designed the very first logo for the then debuting company, Macintosh.
In the early 1980s, Prince Rainier III of Monaco offered the artist a studio in the Principality. This was the beginning of a new adventure. For more than 20 years, Folon stayed regularly in Monaco, he died there on 20th October 2005.
It was also in Monaco that, on the advice of his friend the sculptor César who introduced him to his foundryman, Jean-Michel Folon began to work on sculpture, and so began “the second half of his life” as he liked to say. Fascinated by his new calling as a sculptor, encouraged by his family and friends, among whom, H.S.H. Prince Rainier III, a talented sculptor himself, Folon produced what is probably the most interesting part of his body of work.
What in Jean-Michel Folon’s Universe, could pass for a little “simple”, and sometimes too “gentle and tender” becomes, confronted with the hard physical and spatial reality of Bronze, the very embodiment of this dream that the artist wanted to put forward.
