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World Cup Poster 1982 Zaragoza, Spain designed by Jean-Michel Folon

The Organising Committee of the 1982 Football World Cup that was held in Spain commissioned 15 posters in all: the official tournament poster entitled Espana created by Joan Miro and the 14 host city posters designed by a distinguished group of internationally acclaimed artists. Football poster collectors regard these posters as representing the best graphics when it comes to World Cup football posters.

The Belgian artist Jean – Michel Falon was born in 1934 in Uccle, in the surroundings of Brussels. Although having made studies of architecture, he will be devoted very quickly to the drawing. He takes part, by its illustrations, with reviews and other periodicals ; he is considered a long time as cartoonist. Folon very early created a world which is clean for him into which an anonymous character seems to float or slip into an indefinite world, sometimes absurd.
By the use of the color, its work takes a more pictorial turn towards the end of the Sixties. In 1969, its first personal show is organized in New York (Lefebre Gallery). In little time its universe is essential: covers of French and American newspapers, posters, credits of television broadcasts. Many galleries seize this graphic phenomenon where a certain nostalgia competes with the criticism of the society which animates the artist.
The subtle art of Folon becomes familiar. The public is often identified with this man lost in this concrete world, among these arrows with the thousand contradictory directions, handled man, lunatic, anonymity.
In 1971, the Museum of Decorative Arts of Paris will organize a vast show (90 works) of its production. Italy, the United States, Japan exposes the artist. Folon will produce a great number of etchings, screenprints, watercolours, covers of books, illustrations, or collage. He will be interested in animation, with tapestry, in theatre (decorations, costumes), with sculpture, will carry out mural works. Reproductions of its "images" or posters will flower on the walls of many French and foreign apartments.
Jean Michel Folon died in Monaco in 2005.

61 x 95 cm