Jean Michel Folon (Belgian, 1934 – 2005)
Jean-Michel Folon’s enigmatic landscapes and mysterious humanoid forms helped revolutionize conceptual approaches to illustration in the late 20th century. While Folon has worked across multiple disciplines—including painting, textile, sculpture, stained glass, and printmaking—he is perhaps best known for his drawings and watercolors depicting landscapes in the vein of Surrealist masters such as Salvador Dalí and René Magritte. These works depicted idyllic forests and prison-like skyscrapers populated by butterfly or bird/human hybrids he called “Everymen.” Folon’s drawings were published in such publications as Esquire, The New Yorker, and Time, among others, and he illustrated a number of well-known books. Folon widely exhibited during his lifetime, including at institutions such as Les Arts Décoratifs, the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, and the Musée Picasso.
