François Morellet is a French visual artist, born in 1926 and died in 2016. Better known abroad, particularly in Germany, François Morellet became famous for his massive use of neon in his visual creations. He is one of the few artists to have entered the Louvre Museum during their lifetime for having created the stained glass windows for the Lefuel staircase in 2010.
His first personal exhibition will take place at the Galerie Creuze in Paris in March 1950.
At the end of 1950, he traveled to Brazil. At that time, François Morellet discovers there the work of Max Bill and concrete art, which will be fundamental in his artistic orientation. Upon his return to France in 1951, he produced his first geometric works. At the same time, Joël Stein introduces him to the works of Marcel Duchamp and he is won over by the work of Piet Mondrian, which will be a capital discovery.
In 1958, through François and Véra Molnar, he met Victor Vasarely and presented his second exhibition in Paris at the Colette Allendy gallery. He produced his first plots and introduced chance into his works.
It was with Horacio Garcia Rossi, Julio Le Parc, Joël Stein, Francisco Sobrino, and Jean-Pierre Yvaral that François Morellet created the Groupe de Recherche d'Art Visuel (GRAV) in 1960. Morellet exhibited his first works in neon in 1963 in the labyrinth of the group installed during the 3rd Paris Biennale. The GRAV dissolved in 1968 after having participated in several international exhibitions. That same year, François Morellet produced his first ephemeral adhesives.

In 1971 he took part in the Venice Biennale, and several retrospectives of his work were organized in several European museums, then in American museums in the 1980s. The architectural integrations now number 135. François Morellet began in 1988 the Marine Landscapes series which will lead to the Disfigurations series. In the 90s, he produced more baroque works, Relâches, Free Vol and Lunatiques and developed new works using the number π.

François Morellet received no artistic training and claimed this self-taught status as a guarantor of his freedom.