Galerie Paul Prouté

François Houtin was born on August 25, 1950, in Craon, Mayenne. After working as a gardener, floral designer, and landscape architect with Jacques Bédat and Franz Baechler, he began studying printmaking at 80 Boulevard Montparnasse in Jean Delpech’s studio, where Philippe Mohlitz and Erik Desmazières had also trained. His early prints already foreshadowed a quest for an idealized natural world, featuring fantastical gardens and landscapes that reveal his scholarly knowledge of plants. He continued to work on various projects as a landscape architect but eventually set aside his main profession around 1979 to devote himself to printmaking, focusing primarily on etching and drypoint. He has won several awards, including the Lacourière Prize (1981), the Florence Gould Prize (1986), and the Léon-Georges Baudry Grand Prize from the Taylor Foundation (2010).