Folke Jansson studied art and design at the Nordic Correspondence Institute, a Swedish distance learning school in Malmö, Sweden from 1935-37. After graduation, Jansson worked as a set designer, decorator, drawing teacher and communication designer until 2000.
In 1955 Jansson designed the lounge chair Arabesk with the aim to form a chair out of one piece or “Like a line going through the whole chair” as Jansson described it himself. When it was launched at the furniture fair in Gothenburg the same year it was called the furniture sensation of the year and it even got international attention, but it didn’t sell in any large quantities.
Arabesk was produced by S.M. Wincrantz Möbelindustri for which he also designed the Tellus sofa and armchair (1956) the Rondo swivel chair (1957) and the sofa Facett (1958). Jansson also designed a prototype for the chair Myggan, that never went into production and was sold at the Swedish auction house Bukowskis in 2013.
During the 1970’s Arabesk was bought by the Vitra Design Museum from an auction in Paris, making it one of two Swedish pieces in their collection at the time (the other on being Pernilla by Bruno Mathsson). Since 2001 Arabesk is manufactured and sold by Ihreborn Produktion in Stockaryd, Sweden and internationally by Matrix International, Italy.
After his retirement in 2000, Jansson was active as an artist, working mainly in painting and clay. He passed away at the age of 96.
