Sam embarked on a multi-year slow cooking project of photographing artists from around the world. They were all personal favourites, colleagues that he had admired for years. Sadly the project came to a premature end because getting artists to commit to a day or two of shooting is like herding cats. Sam was not the type to spend ages persuading people to pose for him so, when the logistics became too much of a stress the project was abandoned.
However, along the way Sam was able to pay homage to creative minds and personalities that had provided him with much joy and inspiration through their work. One of the happiest of these encounters was with the brilliant Belgian illustrator and graphic artist Jean Michel Folon. From the late sixties Sam always had at least one giant Folon poster (which Sam framed himself), hanging prominently in his studio.
The photographs below were taken in the early eighties at Folon’s studio outside Paris before he moved to Monaco.
The black ‘T’ shape in the two image layout above was a graphic mechanism that Sam used for his exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in Canberra in 2006.
Below is a selection of Folon’s incredible work. Always, deeply thoughtful, tender hearted, delicately executed, highly graphic minimal line, super saturated colours and emotionally taught with a signature mix of humour and haunting sadness.
Further examples of Folon’s work can be found here: Official Site, Folon Foundation, Wikipedia Entry.
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