His artistic friendships profoundly shaped his career: alongside César, he formed lasting relationships with the poet Jacques Prévert and the brothers Alberto and Diego Giacometti. These encounters guided his creative vision towards a collaborative and interdisciplinary approach.
Since the 1960s, he has established himself as a figurehead of narrative and a contributor to the invention of the New History. His political commitment culminated in May 1968 with the creation of the Atelier populaire des Beaux-Arts, producing posters and slogans supporting protest movements. That same year, his collaboration with Jean-Luc Godard on film-tracts demonstrates his openness to audiovisual media.
In the early 1970s, Dutch filmmaker Joris Ivens allowed him to travel to China, an experience that enriched his artistic perspective. He then developed a distinctive photographic approach, using the camera "to capture images without a deliberate point of view," an approach Michel Foucault called "the film of anonymous movement."
His creativity flourishes in the constant exchange with poets, philosophers, writers, painters, sculptors, filmmakers, musicians and architects, a network of relationships that he considers to be the essential driving force of his creative process. His successive stays in Normandy, Camargue, China, Belgium, Paris, London, Berlin, Tokyo, Abidjan and New York nourish a cosmopolitan body of work.
In 2015, a controversial stained-glass window project for the Romanesque church of Anzy-le-Duc revealed the tensions between contemporary art and religious heritage. Proposed by a local industrialist and designed by Fromanger, the project was abandoned following objections from the Bishop of Autun, who deemed it "incompatible with the Christian identity of the building."
He ended his career dividing his time between Paris and Siena, passing away in the French capital on June 18, 2021. Buried at Père-Lachaise, he leaves behind a body of work marked by social commitment and formal experimentation.
