French/German printmaker Tony Torrilhon was born in France in 1931. He studied medicine at the Lycee Louis-le-Grand in Paris starting in 1949 with a focus on pathology. He also took secondary art classes in drawing and painting at this time, and was given his first solo show in 1953 at the gallery Rue de Seine on Paris, to critical acclaim. His final thesis upon graduation was a dissertation titled "The Pathology of Peter Breugel the Elder," combining his interests in medicine and art. In the mid 1950s he participated in group shows at the Benezit Gallery in Paris as well as a traveling exhibiton in 1958 that went from Paris to Geneva, Switzerland to Houston, Texas.

After his military service in Algeria as a field doctor from 1958 to 1960, he returned to school intent on learning printmaking. He attended the Accademia delle Belle Arti in Florence, Italy, in 1961, studying lithography, etching, and oil painting and participating in the Artisti Stranieri in Firenze. In 1965 he relocated to Berlin, Germany,  where he attended the Hochschule der Kunste. He exhibited again at the Artisti Stranieri in 1965 and '69, and briefly returned to Paris in 1972 on an internship to the Ecole Boule, furthering his studies. He participated in several major exhibitions of copperplate engravings in West Berlin in the late 1970s, with the theme of political freedom, including the Free Berlin Art Exhibition in 1975. By the early 1980s he had produced over 400 copperplate engravings. 

By the early 1980s he began moving away from printmaking and incorporating more wooden sculpture into his oeuvre, accepting several commissions from private and public institutions. He continued to exhibit freqently throughout Europe and in 1996 he moved with his wife to rural Rheinsberg, north of Berlin. In 2001 a retrospective of his work was held in Berlin. In 2007 he received a major commission for a sculpture at the Rheinsberg bulwark, "Hand mit Stein (Hand with Stone)," and from 2008 to 2021 he worked primarily as a sculptor. He recieved an honorary Badge of the City of Rheinsberg, Germany, for his artistic achievements.

Tony Torrilhon passed away on November 9, 2025.