(Brussels 1934–2005 Monaco)
La pêche miraculeuse (Buste aux poissons) / The Miraculous Catch (Bust with Fish), 2005, bronze, signed and numbered HC 2/2 (from an edition of 2 + 2 EA + 2 HC) with the foundry mark: Romain & Fils, h 81 cm w 43 cm.

This work will be included in the artist’s forthcoming catalogue raisonné currently being prepared by the Fondation Folon.

This work is registered at the Fondation Folon with the number F400 and is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity.

Provenance:
European Private Collection

The Belgian artist Jean-Michel Folon (1934-2005) has left a universal mark on the collective imagination of the last third of the 20th century through his posters, illustrations, television animations, and his numerous exhibitions. A humanist, he left behind a figurative and poetic body of work rooted in traditional techniques, which was atypical for an environment dominated by conceptual art. Folon turned to sculpture in the early 1990s, having initially focused on paper-based techniques (inks, silk-screen printing, watercolour), thus providing him with a new challenge.
His sculptures are inspired by ethnographic art and characterised by their frontality and corporality, from the Cyclades to the Etruscans, from African masks to Amerindian totems. They are largely centred on the human being and embody themes that were once treated graphically and thus project the artist's universe into atypical and natural environments: landscapes, gardens, parks, interiors.

La pêche miraculeuse (Buste aux poissons) [The Miraculous Catch (Bust with Fish)] from 2005 presents the artist’s favoured Everyman, the character with the hat, onto whom everyone can project themselves. He is holding an armful of fish. This bust sculpture is a variation on a theme that Folon had explored with a few years earlier in his Fontaine aux poissons [Fountain with Fish], which has been shown to the public on numerous occasions at major exhibitions, notably in Florence in 2005. The quality of the patina of this remarkable Catch is typical of Folon's quasi-pictorial quest for sculpture. It drew this comment from the sculptor.

“You make impressionist sculptures, these are the patinas of a painter and each of your sculptures will be unique because you will never be able to do the same thing twice.”
César