Hello Monaco #10 Winter 2020–2021 | Page 80

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JEAN-MICHEL FOLON WHOSE FLYING MEN MAKE OUR SPIRITS FLY TOO

It was March , 1 , 1934 and an extraordinary individual was born in Brussels . He would grow up to study architecture at the Institut Saint-Luc in Belgium but at the age of 21 he left for Paris and devoted himself to the real passion that burned within him — art and particularly watercolours . It was not in Europe but in the United States that the great initial spark took place where he created a dreamlike universe of watercolours which awakened and challenged our imaginations . We are talking about Jean-Michel Folon whose most famous emblem is the « bird-man » and , of course , the fedora , his iconic hat . In the middle 1980s he settled in Monaco where he died in October , 2005 and was buried in the local cemetery . Nowadays , 15 years after Folon ’ s death , we still admire his wonderful « La Fontaine Aux Oiseaux » ( Bird Fountain ) in Monaco-Ville , one of the most touching sculptures in the Principality — a man kindly palm-feeding pigeons becoming himself a part of Nature …
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