Eric Joisel

Mermaid folded from a single uncut piece of paper

1 minute ago

French origami artist who mastered animal and human

forms in complex paper-folded sculptures
Eric Joisel was one of the world’s greatest origami artists, and has been compared to
the sculptor Rodin. He developed a unique style of complex origami, spending
sometimes more than 100 hours making a single piece, only by folding the paper. He
created remarkably detailed human figures, and recently some of these have
commanded prices in the thousands of pounds. Joisel’s creations are quite diverse.
They are always three-dimensional, and are often folded from lightly moistened paper
which dries to a solid form, with subtle and gently curving surfaces.

Although a skilful folder of both living creatures and inanimate forms, he was best
known for his expressive human figures. Joisel was one of few origami artists who
have mastered the human form, thanks to his artistic background and sensibilities.
He folded several figures from The Lord of the Rings stories, and an exquisite
11-piece jazz band with whimsical musicians and detailed instruments.

Eric Joisel was born in Paris in 1956, the youngest of five children. His father was a
geologist. For a time he studied law, but at the age of 17 he trained as a sculptor in
clay, stone and wood. Later he worked as a manager of a printing company, and even
worked as a clown when money problems were pressing. His interest in origami
started in the early 1980s after seeing a photograph of a self-portrait folded by Akira
Yoshizawa (1911-2005). Yoshizawa is often considered to be the father of modern
origami, having elevated a “trivial” children’s pastime into a recognised art form.

In 1983 Joisel met the Japanese artist Usataro Kimura, who introduced him to a
Japanese bookshop in Paris, where Joisel bought books by Yoshizawa and other
origami authors. Soon Joisel started creating his own origami designs, and in 1987 his
work was first publicly exhibited at Espace Japon in Paris, in a joint exhibition with
Kimura called La Ménagerie de Papier.

Joisel featured prominently in Vanessa Gould’s award-winning documentary

Between the Folds (Green Fuse Films, 2008). Interviewed for the film, he said that
after taking up origami, he destroyed his previous sculptural activities, and thereafter
concentrated only on folding paper.

Over the next five years he organised many origami exhibitions in France, and in 1992
he became a full-time origami artist. The next year he began working with Michel
Charbonnier to form France Origami, arranging exhibitions and workshops in
shopping malls, libraries and cultural centres. He made many large-scale models for
these events. Though Joisel’s work was still virtually unknown outside France, he
made contact with several other origami artists at a convention of Mouvement
Français des Plieurs de Papier in Troyes in 1996, and in the same year he exhibited at
the South Eastern Origami Festival in Charlotte, North Carolina. In later years, he
attended this biennial festival three times, becoming a key organiser, and making
many of the large-scale works in which he specialised: a pegasus, a rhino and a huge
overhead installation of flying cranes.

He was keen to meet the man whose work had inspired him, Akira Yoshizawa, and
eventually met the master in York at a British Origami Society convention in 1997.
Eric showed his work there including some expressive human masks and busts, a
turtle and a hedgehog. His extraordinary pangolin involved cross-pleating to create
scales of varying sizes. In England, Joisel forged many contacts who were deeply
impressed by his work, and many of these were to prove pivotal in his origami career.

In 1998 Joisel was festival director for Paris-Origami, a large exhibition at the
Carrousel du Louvre, a shopping mall beneath the famous museum. Twenty top
international origami artists, including, Yoshizawa, were invited, and they gave public
workshops there. But Paris-Origami was not a financial success, as sponsorship
promises were not fulfilled, and Joisel had to settle bills he could little afford. As a
quid pro quo for Paris-Origami, Joisel was invited to Yoshizawa’s 88th birthday
celebrations in Tokyo in October 1999. He was one of only five origami artists to be
exhibited alongside the master at his commemorative exhibition at Matsuya Ginza
department store.

Joisel had become a popular guest speaker at origami events in many countries,
including England, the United States, Japan, Canada, Israel, Austria, and Spain. He
spoke excellent English, but played and teased with his French accent and
philosophies with great good humour. He often referred to himself as “a crazy French
clown” and “the little folder from the Paris suburb”. Often while demonstrating wet
folding techniques, he suggested how to make a mask by pressing a sheet of paper
over his face, and then pouring a jug of water over his own head.

Shortly after he had returned home from an origami convention in Israel in 2008,
Joisel was given a diagnosis of lung cancer. Nevertheless he continued to attend
origami conventions and exhibitions in Verbania, Lake Maggiore, and Lyon. He drove
from Paris to Zaragoza for a Spanish meeting only a few months before his death.
Though already used to financial crises, he feared that his house in Sannois would
have to be sold to pay for his treatment. This was avoided, thanks to sales of many of
his best recent pieces to collectors in Japan and the US.

Even during periods of debilitating treatment, he worked on an ambitious project of

designing new characters from the Commedia dell’Arte. With difficulty, he provided
material for Eric Joisel, the Wizard of Paper, a comprehensive anthology of his work
which is soon to be published by Gallery Origami House, Tokyo. His funeral in
Enghien-les-Bain was attended by origami artists from the US, Canada, Israel and
Japan. Many of the models were irreproducible, even by Joisel himself.

Eric Joisel, origami artist, was born on November 15, 1956. He died on 10 October
2010, aged 53

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