About Froissage.com: An Independent Guide to Froissage
Froissage.com is an independent, non-commercial guide to froissage, the art technique of drawing and painting from the creases of crumpled paper. We cover the technique itself, its history in Czech and French art, the artists associated with it, and practical projects for classrooms and home studios.
Who writes the site
The site is written and maintained by a small editorial team with an interest in twentieth-century art techniques and art education. Pages are credited to the Froissage Editorial Team rather than to individual names.
We are not a museum, gallery, auction house or artists’ estate. Froissage.com is not affiliated with the estates of Ladislav Novák or Jiří Kolář, the Ladislav Novák Gallery in Třebíč, the National Gallery Prague, the Slovak National Gallery or any other institution we cite.
How we research
- Sources first. Facts about artists, dates and works come from museum collection pages, encyclopedias (such as the Encyclopaedia Universalis), publishers’ biographies and art databases (such as artlist.cz). Each article lists its sources at the bottom.
- No guessing. If we cannot confirm a date or an attribution, we leave it out or say that sources differ. For example, accounts of the year of Jiří Kolář’s arrest differ, and we say so.
- Hands-on methods. The practical guides describe methods that work with ordinary materials: copy paper, drawing paper, inks and watercolours.
What changed in 2026
Froissage.com started in 2025 as a short five-page site. In October 2026 we rebuilt it, rewrote and expanded every page, checked each claim against sources, removed statements we could not verify, and replaced images that had been taken from other websites with openly licensed, credited photographs. The main guides are now also available in French and Spanish.
Images and copyright
Artworks by Novák, Kolář and the other artists we discuss are still protected by copyright, so we do not reproduce them. Instead we link to the museums that hold them. Photographs on this site are either public domain (CC0) or published under Creative Commons licences, and each one is credited on the page where it appears.
What we added in October 2026
In October 2026 we expanded the site well beyond its original core of froissage guides. New pages cover the wider family of chance techniques (frottage, decalcomania, fumage, grattage, marbling), the artists who developed them, and practical topics readers asked about, such as froissage with acrylic paint, how to flatten crumpled paper and crumpled paper art for preschoolers. New artist profiles include Óscar Domínguez, Wolfgang Paalen and André-Pierre Arnal, and our page on chance in art ties the history together.
The same principles apply to every new page. Facts and dates come from museum records, encyclopedias and other primary or reference sources, listed at the foot of each page; where sources disagree, we say so rather than pick one silently. Artworks still in copyright are described and linked to museum records, not reproduced. Images are our own or openly licensed, with credits on each page. Most new English guides also have French and Spanish versions, written for readers in those languages rather than translated word for word.
Corrections and suggestions
If you spot an error, know a better source, or teach froissage and want to share how you use it, please write to us through the contact page. We read every message and update pages when a correction is confirmed.
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