Éric Joisel (15 November 1956 – 10 October 2010) was a French

origami ) is the Japanese art of paper folding. In modern usage, the word "origami" is often used as an inclusive term for all folding practices, regardless of their culture of origin. The goal is to transform a flat square sheet of paper into a f ...

artist who specialized in the

wet-folding Wet-folding is an origami technique developed by Akira Yoshizawa that employs water to dampen the paper so that it can be manipulated more easily. This process adds an element of sculpture to origami, which is otherwise purely geometric. Wet-foldi ...

method, creating figurative art sculptures using sheets of paper and water, without the use of any adhesive or scissors.

Early life

Joisel was born on 15 November 1956, in

Montmorency, Val-d'Oise Montmorency () is a commune in the northern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the center of Paris. Montmorency was the fief of the Montmorency family, one of the oldest and most distinguished families of the French nobility. It is ...

, a commune in the northern suburbs of

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

, and focused his education on history and law before turning to art. His initial experiences in the art world were in sculpting, using the traditional forms of clay and stone.

Career

He first discovered in the 1980s the unique forms created with paper by

Akira Yoshizawa Akira Yoshizawa (吉澤章 ''Yoshizawa Akira''; 14 March 1911 – 14 March 2005) was a Japanese origamist, considered to be the grandmaster of origami. He is credited with raising origami from a craft to a living art. According to his own es ...

, the Japanese grandmaster of origami who had created more than 50,000 models, developing the wet-folding method that allowed for the creation of three-dimensional rounded sculptures. Joisel was taken by the way the Yoshizawa's works blended classical origami methods and standard forms of sculpture in order to make expressive figures out of wet paper, without making any cuts or using any glue.Fox, Margalit
"Eric Joisel, French Sculptor of Origami, Dies at 53"
''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'', October 20, 2010. Accessed October 20, 2010. Origami Joisel Rat

Joisel shifted to working with paper in the 1990s, devoting the remainder of his career to creating origami art using his own self-taught variation of the wet-folding techniques that Yoshizawa had developed and refined. He devoted his life to origami after losing his job as the manager of a printing company. Living in a small home, he devoted hours focusing on the meticulous design and detail of each piece of origami. He could spend as much as years working out the plans for one of his original origami pieces, with a single piece created over a period of days or weeks, involving hundreds of precisely planned and executed folds to sheets of paper that could measure to as much as by to create figures that ranged from the size of one's hand to life size, while many were no more than high. Though his work was displayed at the

Musée du Louvre The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is the world's most-visited museum, and an historic landmark in Paris, France. It is the home of some of the best-known works of art, including the ''Mona Lisa'' and the ''Venus de Milo''. A central l ...

and collectors from around the world paid as much as thousands of dollars for some of his origami sculptures, the tremendous amount of time that he devoted to each work meant that he didn't earn much income. Themed pieces that he handcrafted included figures from commedia dell'arte and foot-high sculptures of musicians each holding a finely detailed musical instrument.Eric Joisel: Musicians
EricJoisel.com. Accessed October 20, 2010. Joisel published many of the design plans for his figures, providing a look into the extraordinary level of detail and precision that "renders his art simultaneously approachable and unattainable". In his obituary, ''

'' included instructions on how to duplicate one of Joisel's figures of a rat, though it noted that "no lay person should even contemplate the hedgehog". Joisel was featured in the documentary '' Between the Folds'', a 2009 film by Vanessa Gould about the modern world of origami artists. Joisel First Dwarf.jpg, Joisel's First Dwarf Joisel - Three Kings - from Lord of the Ring.jpg, Three Kings - from Lord of the Ring Joisel - Gandalf.jpg, Gandalf

Death

A resident of

Sannois Sannois () is a commune in the northwestern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located 15.2 km. (9.4 miles) from the center of Paris, in the Val-d'Oise department in Île-de-France in northern France. Population Transport Public transpo ...

, Joisel died at the age of 53 on 10 October 2010, in

Argenteuil Argenteuil () is a commune in the northwestern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the center of Paris. Argenteuil is a sub-prefecture of the Val-d'Oise department, the seat of the arrondissement of Argenteuil. Argenteuil is the sec ...

, of

lung cancer Lung cancer, also known as lung carcinoma (since about 98–99% of all lung cancers are carcinomas), is a malignant lung tumor characterized by uncontrolled cell growth in tissues of the lung. Lung carcinomas derive from transformed, malign ...

. He had never married and had no children, and was survived by four siblings.

References

External links

Hommage à Éric JoiselForever - Eric Joisel (15/11/1956 - 10/10/2010)
* *Eric Joisel Award 2012 : Kade Chan
Instructions to create a sculpture of a rat
*http://www.ericjoisel.com/
Eric Joisel at Findagrave.comInterview in the British Origami Society magazine
{{DEFAULTSORT:Joisel, Eric 1956 births 2010 deaths People from Val-d'Oise Deaths from lung cancer in France 20th-century French sculptors French male sculptors 21st-century French sculptors 21st-century French male artists Origami artists