Tomi Ungerer: All in One by The Drawing Center

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Tomi Ungerer All in One

THE D R AWI N G CENTER

The Drawing Center Main Gallery, Drawing Room, and The Lab January 16 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; March 22, 2015

Tomi Ungerer All in One

Curated by Claire Gilman

D R AW I N G PA P E R S 12 0

Essays by Claire Gilman, Thérèse Willer, Peter Sís, and Tomi Ungerer

Curator’s Acknowledgments

This exhibition begins and ends with the one and only Tomi Ungerer. I was privileged to have been introduced to Ungerer’s books as a child, and I am equally thankful to have encountered the full range of his production as an adult. It has been a rare honor to work with Tomi. He not only possesses a staggeringly creative mind, but exhibits a moral intelligence and humanity of spirit as unique as it is inspiring. This show would not have been possible without the generous support of several key individuals and institutions: Herman Baily of the Tomi Ungerer Collection in Cork, Ireland; Paul Curtis; Caitlin Goodman and Zac Dell’Orto of the Free Library of Philadelphia; Burton Pike; Jack Rennert and Angelina Lippert of Rennert’s Gallery; Cécile Ripoll of the Musée Tomi Ungerer – Centre international de l’Illustration, Strasbourg, France; and, especially, Thérèse Willer, the museum’s Director, whose support and expertise have contributed immeasurably to this exhibition. My thanks go also to the amazing Peter Sís for his wonderful contribution to the catalogue, Philipp Keel and Peter Tittiger and

their fabulous teams at Diogenes Verlag and Phaidon, and to Brad Berstein and First Run Features for allowing us to screen their wonderful film. Finally, this exhibition could not have happened without the enthusiasm, humor, and dedication of Aria Ungerer, who has been my comrade-in-arms throughout this entire process. The Drawing Center’s hardworking staff deserves recognition for their role in realizing this exhibition. Specials thanks go to Brett Littman, Executive Director, for his sustained support for this project; to Jessica Man, Curatorial Assistant; to Curatorial Interns Veronica Flom, Jenya Frid, Danielle Lindenberg, Chelsea Pierce, Emily Simon, Kate Wiener, and, especially, Alessia Pizziconi for their invaluable help at various stages of the project; and, above all, to Nova Benway, Assistant Curator, for handling the many organizational elements of this show with enthusiasm and aplomb and offering valuable curatorial insights along the way. Thanks also to Joanna Ahlberg, Managing Editor; Peter J. Ahlberg, AHL&CO; Dan Gillespie, Operations Manager; Molly Gross, Communications Director; Margaret Sundell, Executive Editor; Alice Stryker, Development Manager; Olga Valle Tetkowski, Exhibition Manager, who stepped into a difficult situation and handled it with grace and dexterity; Nicole Goldberg, former Deputy Director, External Affairs; Anna Martin, former Registrar; and Jeanine Herman, translator. Finally, I am incredibly appreciative of the steadfast support of The Drawing Center’s Board of Trustees and the exhibition funders who have supported this show and its accompanying catalogue: Phaidon Publishing; an anonymous donor; the Maurice Sendak Foundation; EDF Group; Philippe Castagnet; HarperCollins; Dominque Formhals; Fiona and Eric Rudin; the French Embassy; and L’école des Loisirs. My deepest thanks are reserved for Jean Castelli and Lisa Silver for whose abounding generosity and enthusiasm for all things Tomi I am profoundly grateful.

“I don’t belong to a country. My only country is the soles of my shoes.”

Ungerer quoted in Zut! (special issue on Ungerer), N. 1 (December, 2011), 101.

Tomi Ungerer: All in One Claire Gilman

“No one, I dare say, no one was as original. Tomi influenced everybody.”1 So spoke legendary children’s book author Maurice Sendak of the iconoclastic Alsatian illustrator Tomi Ungerer, who descended on the New York scene in late 1956. For the next fifteen years, Ungerer’s was a household name in American children’s book publishing and beyond—his drawings appearing in such popular magazines as Harper’s, Holiday, Esquire, Sports Illustrated, and Life. But despite the industry clout and presence he once held in the United States, Ungerer’s current reputation is geographically circumscribed. Walk into any museum bookstore in France, Italy, and Germany and the artist’s publications line the shelves. Indeed, his renown in Europe extends far outside the literary world to include numerous accolades—not only for his children’s books, but also for his work in advertising, his satirical and political drawings, as well as his longstanding humanitarian efforts. In 2003, he was named Ambassador for Childhood and Education by The Council of Europe; in 2007, 1

Maurice Sendak quoted in Far Out Isn’t Far Enough: The Tomi Ungerer Story, a documentary film directed by Brad Bernstein (2012).

he became the first living artist in French history to have a government-funded museum dedicated to his work; and last year he received a lifetime achievement award from the president of France. By contrast, mention his name in the country—let alone the city—where he spent his professionally formative decade and one is apt to draw blank or vaguely reminiscent stares. “Why is this so?” is the question posed by the 2012 documentary Far Out Isn’t Far Enough: The Tomi Ungerer Story; it is also a situation this exhibition aims to redress. The standard explanation for Ungerer’s relative obscurity in America hinges on the circumstances surrounding his abrupt departure from New York in 1971, a decade and a half after he arrived there from Strasbourg, France. According to an oft-repeated story, the move was precipitated by a juvenile literature convention in which the children’s book establishment took issue with the recent revelation—and the artist’s unapologetic response to it—that the beloved author was also an avid producer of erotica.2 Fed up with New York’s puritanical ethos, the story goes, Ungerer relocated to a farm in Nova Scotia, with his new wife, Yvonne, where they lived in near seclusion before reentering public life with a permanent move to Ireland in 1976. While the accuracy of this story is unquestioned, it presents a limited view of the challenges facing an artist who, throughout his career, has engaged not simply in two seemingly contradictory practices, but also in a range of subjects and styles unprecedented in the history of illustration. Ungerer is not a children’s book author who dabbles in erotic fare; rather, he is a multifaceted creative force who has simultaneously participated in major advertising campaigns, limned numerous books of satirical drawings, self-published scathing posters against violence and racial prejudice, and produced exquisite observational sketches and large-scale drawings of rural life. He adopts, moreover, specific 2

As Ungerer describes it in Bernstein’s film, he was called upon to speak at the podium and, in the question and answer section, someone in the audience attacked him, asking how he could produce children’s books and erotic works like Fornicon. More and more people chimed in, and Ungerer got very angry and responded, in his words, by using “the word you shouldn’t ever use: If people didn’t fuck, you wouldn’t have any children and without children you would be out of work. From there on it went really badly.”

and vastly diverse methods—from simple linear pen gestures to fullscale color renderings—to portray images that are variously poignant and tender, dark and ferocious, gently whimsical and bitterly funny. Early on, despite an intense affection for his new city, Ungerer chafed against what he perceived to be an American penchant for strict categorization. As he explains in retrospect, whereas Europe never flinched at his maverick productivity, “somehow you are permitted to be only one thing there [in America]: I was a clown—a children’s-book writer who could also draw.”3 With hindsight, and within the context of a contemporary art world that prizes crosspollination and the eradication of boundaries, it is precisely this unclassifiability that makes Ungerer’s work so vital and ripe for reassessment. If Europe has been generally more accepting of his eclectic career path, it is undoubtedly in part because Ungerer is himself a product of shifting European identities. Born in Strasbourg in 1931, his creativity was encouraged by a mother who was a talented writer and draftswoman and a father who was an artist, writer, engineer, and astronomical-clock manufacturer. Domestic harmony, however, was short-lived, disrupted by the death of his father when Tomi was three—a loss with which the artist still struggles. Trauma of a more global nature soon followed with the arrival of the Nazis in Strasbourg in 1940 and the annexation of French-controlled Alsace by the Germans. Within the space of three months, the young Tomi was forced to learn German and publically abandon his French ways (thanks to his mother’s ingenuity, the family was allowed to continue speaking French at home).4 In his revelatory autobiography, Tomi: A 3

Ungerer quoted in Selma G. Lanes, “Peck’s Bad Boy of Art,” New York Times Magazine, May 24, 1981, http://www.nytimes.com/1981/05/24/magazine/peck-s-badboy-of-art.html. As Tomi recounts the story, in January 1941, the Ungerers were overheard speaking French in their garden and denounced to the authorities. Alice Ungerer was summoned to explain herself and brought Tomi along with her. “Yes, we speak French, and you will not stop us from doing so,” she declared. “And I will tell you why. After the war, after our final victory, how shall we establish the new order in Europe, in France, if no German speaks French?” The Nazi officer was electrified and kissed Tomi’s mother’s hand: “I meet, at last,” he intoned, “a true daughter of the Führer. Please accept my apologies.” Again and again, Tomi’s mother would use cunning and wit to get around the Germans’ edicts. Tomi: A Childhood under the Nazis (Boulder, Dublin, London, Sydney: TomiCo; The Roberts Rinehart Publishing Group, 1998), 104.

Childhood under the Nazis, Ungerer details the daily injustices and barbarism he witnessed, first, under the Germans and, more surprisingly, under the returning French, whose 1945 “liberation” of Alsace he has termed “the greatest disillusion of my life.”5 As he puts it, “My whole childhood was a schooling in relativity, in figuring out for myself who were the good guys and who were the bad.”6 At the same time, Ungerer developed a fierce pride in his Alsatian heritage, in a people whom he considered strong yet culturally nimble. In his words, “having to adapt ourselves to constant changes has given the Alsatians a great sense of insecurity.”7 The artist summarizes his departure from his native land for America in 1957 thus: “I packed my rucksack and walked into life, stepping over prejudices and jumping over a lot of conclusions. These excursions into the real world taught me that we are each of us born with a life sentence (which is easier to survive with a smile), that a conscience is more effective when tortured, and that we rid ourselves of prejudices only to replace them with other ones....I learned from relativity, which is food for doubt, and doubt is a virtue with enough living space for every imperfect, sin-ridden, life-loving creature on Earth.”8 Instability, doubt, an acceptance—even embrace—of abnormality. If there is a unifying factor in Tomi’s work it is precisely his sustained and deep-felt effort to give voice to the misunderstood and the repressed. This is perhaps most immediately recognizable in his children’s books, the vast majority of which feature outcasts and unlikely heroes. There are the three robbers who turn out to have a soft spot for orphan girls, Crictor the snake and Adelaide the flying kangaroo who convert their handicaps into assets, and the Moon Man who longs to join the throngs on earth only to realize he is happiest alone in space. But Ungerer’s anti-establishment ethos is present in different forms throughout his work: in his assault on American military dominance in the anti-Vietnam War posters; in his inflammatory graphic response to racial injustice, Black Power/White Power, which targets not simply racism against African Americans but extremism on both

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Ungerer quoted in Zut! (special issue on Ungerer), N. 1 (December, 2011), 45. Ungerer quoted in Lanes, “Peck’s Bad Boy of Art.” Ungerer, Tomi: A Childhood under the Nazis, ix. Ibid., 175.

sides. The same aversion to cultural norms that undergirds beloved texts like The Three Robbers motivates his erotic drawings, grounded as they are in a surprising kind of humanism. Consider the images of brothel workers going about their daily duties in Schutzengel der Hölle (Guardian angels of hell), a project dedicated to dominatrixes in Hamburg whom Tomi came to admire for their service to society’s outcasts. Describing the women’s efforts to fulfill a particularly brutal fantasy, Ungerer observes: “My first line in my book Far Out isn’t Far Enough is ‘What is normal?’ It’s better for a guy like this to find a woman instead of killing a little girl in the woods out of frustration. We have a lot of sick people in this world and we have to acknowledge them. Who does the job?”9 This drive to overturn convention sheds light not only on Ungerer’s choice of subject, but also on his wide-ranging style. Ungerer has described himself as a “selfish” artist who values his own desires at the expense of good taste.10 I would argue, however, that his approach is profoundly self-less in that he sacrifices himself to the demands of his subjects in a way that many artists would find uncomfortable. (We have already noted that Ungerer’s lack of a single, recognizable style in the manner of Maurice Sendak or Saul Steinberg has hampered his reputation.) What to make of a man who creates caustic political imagery one year and moves to rural Canada where he produces landscapes and studies of farm life worthy of Andrew Wyeth or Winslow Homer the next? How indeed to understand someone who gamely concocts sweetly romantic ink-wash sketches for a German songbook (Das große Liederbuch) and harsh, unforgiving black-pen renderings of death for a volume entitled Rigor Mortis? Ungerer has explained that “what counts is sending a message and, as messages are different, you need different styles.” This is surely true. But beyond the demands of subject matter, it would seem that inhabiting this space of instability constitutes for him a moral and political imperative, bound up as it is in his profoundly humanistic worldview. In Ungerer’s words, “my doubt is open, I tell myself: why not? Everything can be accepted, but everything needs to be questioned” at the same time.11 9

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Ungerer, interview with Andrew Billen, Arieté the Arts Tri-Quarterly (Autumn, 2011). http://www.aretemagazine.co.uk/35-autumn-2011/an-interview-with-tomi-ungerer/. Ungerer, telephone interview with the author (September 8, 2014). Ungerer quoted in Zut!, 159 and 45.

Drawing is Ungerer’s way of interacting with the world—as he puts it, “a tool to make my thoughts accessible.”12 Among the most striking aspects of his method is his tendency to draw and redraw motifs. Rather than use an eraser, Ungerer makes countless sketches. Sifting through them to find the eventually published drawing is a laborious and arguably pointless process. According to the artist, he would rather leave errors than create one perfect composition, a strategy that is evident in his many sketches that include multiple renderings of a subject on a single page, such as an exquisite image that includes repeated profiles of his wife reading to their daughter, Aria. (Ungerer does something similar in several drawings for the erotic book Totempole, imbuing these images of a woman in bondage with an unexpected intimacy.) In these cases and elsewhere, we see the artist feeling his way through his subject, leaving both himself and his model exposed on the page. Equally deliberate is his choice of pictorial support, typically a kind of tracing paper that, according to Ungerer, allows his ink to run fluidly over the surface. In some drawings, like those for the recent children’s book Fog Island, he lays the background on one side of the paper, letting the color fade out at the edges, and adds foreground elements on the other side, lending the final work an eerie, indefinable cast. Lack of finish, fluidity, uncertainty—once again we are in standard Tomi Ungerer territory. Ungerer is similarly experimental with line, frequently allowing it to run wild and move in and out of form. Consider the wonderfully excessive curlicues that constitute the telephone wire in Power Line or the deliciously witty cartoons from Der Herzinfarkt (Heart attack) in which lines push and pull, physically stringing their figures along with them. In a particularly lovely sketch from this series, a tiny business-suited man tries to hook an Atalantalike woman with the crook of his cane. As the mammoth female disassembles into calligraphic strokes, her suitor might as well be trying to capture and pin down drawing itself. It makes perfect sense that Ungerer became a draftsman, and an illustrator at that, rather than a painter like his father; that is, someone called upon to respond to the world around him quickly, 12

Ungerer quoted in Tomi Ungerer: Chronicler of the Absurd (Amherst, MA: The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art, 2011), 12.

repeatedly, and without regard for the dictates of the self-contained aesthetic object. To leave his errors exposed and continue on, such is Ungerer’s way. In this vein, it is important to note that the artist does not place himself above his material, no matter how unsettling the depiction. Whether Ungerer’s target is American commercialism or European provincialism, backwater rednecks or elite society, he freely admits: “I am in all my drawing and books. I don’t say it boastfully, but I’ve performed every one of my fantasies. Maybe it was a way of liberating myself from an uptight and sterile Protestant upbringing. But even while I did all these things, I also rebelled— I repelled myself. And it is this revulsion that comes through so strongly in my work.’’13 For example, although Ungerer cannot be accused of directly participating in the atrocities his political posters invoke, one writer observes that their sheer barbarism is implicative, producing in the viewer an equivalent revulsion against the artist’s audacious imagery.14 “I am a man: nothing that is human is foreign to me,” Ungerer, paraphrasing the Roman playwright Publius Terentius Afer, better known as Terence, has observed—including, one presumes, humanity’s baser impulses.15 The way forward, his work seems to suggest, is to acknowledge these foibles before seeking a different path. In Far Out Isn’t Far Enough, Aria Ungerer explains that a huge part of her father’s life has been the quest for an identity. Hence, his peripatetic journey from Strasbourg to New York to Canada and finally Ireland and his work’s obsessive focus on who we are and where we fit in. If the manic flow of his work is any indication, it is a goal that he is no closer to achieving however physically settled he now may be. And yet this non-belonging is itself a place. In Ungerer’s words, “the thing is, if you have no identity you’re free. Your home is no man’s land. You can do anything in no man’s land. This would be a nice fairytale. The child that travels in no man’s land.”16 This is in essence the story of the recent Fog Island, set mostly in the borderless sea and on a magical island inhabited by a man who controls 13 14 15

Ungerer quoted in Lanes, “Peck’s Bad Boy of Art.” See Lanes, “Peck’s Bad Boy of Art.” Ungerer quoted in Museé Tomi Ungerer: la collection (Strasbourg: Éditions des Musées de Strasbourg, 2007 / Zurich: Diogenes Verlag AG, 2008), 41. Translation mine. Ungerer, telephone interview with the author (September 8, 2014).

the fog, which, as described above, employs hazy tones and back-tofront color washes to create a sense of distanced unreality. It is an apt concluding work for an Ungerer retrospective (drawings from the book close The Drawing Centerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s exhibition), not least because it is a work without conclusion, one in which the final scene returns us to the beginning. The wide open expanses of sea and sky in the Fog Island drawings recall the shadowy hues of The Three Robbers, where a dusky blue serves as both the background and the faces of the robbers who peek through their black cloaks. This is the space of everything and nothing: a space that is perhaps Ungererâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s rightful home.

* Translated from the French by Jeanine Herman. Unless otherwise noted, the works by Ungerer mentioned in this essay are held at the Musée Tomi Ungerer – Centre international de l’Illustration in Strasbourg, France.

Tomi Ungerer: Artist Without Borders* Thérèse Willer

“Drawing is the most direct and personal kind of graphic expression,” Tomi Ungerer once confided to writer Selma G. Lanes.1 Though happy to delve into other fields, like sculpture, writing, and even photography, the artist has indeed remained faithful to drawing, his preferred form. He explores its registers from children’s books and satirical cartoons to ads and observational sketches. This diversification, which may seem unusual at first, nevertheless forms a coherent whole due to the obsessive themes that recur throughout his work. These include time, death, and mechanization—the fundamental wellsprings of anxiety for the artist, who attempts to conjure them away through mockery and the absurd. 1931–1956: The Early Years in Alsace

Jean-Thomas Ungerer (known as Tomi) was born in Strasbourg in Alsace, a border region between France and Germany. He came 1

Ungerer quoted in Selma G. Lanes, “Peck’s Bad Boy of Art,” New York Times Magazine, May 24, 1981, http://www.nytimes.com/1981/05/24/magazine/peck-s-bad-boy-of-art.html.

from a bourgeois, Protestant background: the Ungerers, on the one hand, a dynasty of astronomical clock makers established in Strasbourg for several generations, and the Esslers, on the other, a family of textile manufacturers from the Upper Rhine. His father Théodore, who studied astronomy and sundial making, built the astronomical clock in the cathedral in Messine and maintained the one in the cathedral in Strasbourg. He was, moreover, a talented amateur draughtsman and painter. His mother, Alice, had a penchant for poetry2 and loved to sing. Their children, Bernard, Edith, Geneviève, and, especially their youngest son, Tomi, inherited the family’s artistic sensibility. Young Tomi was just shy of four years old when his father died of blood poisoning. In the artist’s own words, he was “born with death.”3 One immediate consequence of this passing was that the little Ungerer family moved into the home of Tomi’s maternal grandparents in Logelbach (an industrial suburb of Colmar), where he would live until 1953. The period of early childhood was certainly decisive in his artistic evolution. He was immersed in a privileged context of literature, music, and the visual arts. His first readings came from the very eclectic library of his father who, as an Alsatian, felt part of both French and German culture. (The library was carefully preserved by his widow in her parent’s home.) Young Tomi, therefore, had the opportunity to discover Max und Moritz by Wilhelm Busch, Les Fables de la Fontaine by Gustave Doré, Der Struwwelpeter by Heinrich Hoffmann, Les Pieds Nickelés by Louis Forton, L’ histoire d’Alsace racontée aux petits enfants by Jean-Jacques Waltz (better known as Hansi), Benjamin Rabier’s series about Gédéon le canard, and the engravings in L’Assiette au beurre and Simplicissimus by Honoré Daumier, along with works by Jean Ignace Isidore Gérard (published under his pseudonym J.J. Grandville), Léo Schnug, and Rodolphe Töpffer. Reading and music formed a veritable family ritual: on long evenings during the harsh Alsatian winters, Alice Ungerer recounted tales from Germany and the Rhineland to her children and sung them old folk songs from Ludwig Richter’s

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She liked to compose poems in Alexandrines. See Michel Polac’s French television show, Libre et Change (1988).

Hausbuch, accompanying herself on the piano. The cultural context of the Rhine also provided young Tomi with his first artistic impressions, which he remembers: “The main influences in my work were, as a child, Mathias Grünewald, Dürer, Schongauer….”4 It was in the Musée Unterlinden in Colmar that he discovered Grünewald’s Isenheim Altarpiece, a masterpiece of the Middle Ages, whose rendering of the temptation of Saint Anthony immediately exerted a fascination that would have a lasting effect on his satirical cartoons.5 Other artists, such as Cranach, Baldung-Grien, and Holbein, would impress him as well and inspire some of his themes, such the danses macabres. But the most significant event of his youth was the Second World War and, more specifically, the Nazi occupation of Alsace. He recorded various episodes of it in his illustrated journal,6 giving evidence in his first sketches of the freshness and spontaneity of the observational skills that would characterize his mature satire.7 The experience provoked a profound aversion to war and violence, which would be translated into brutal images in his later work. He was also traumatized by the Nazi indoctrination, which dismissed all forms of French culture and, then, during the Liberation, by the French school system’s condescension toward the Alsatian dialect. The immediate postwar period was a time of doubt and rebellion for Ungerer. Though interested in the natural sciences, especially

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He continues: “…as well as Hansi and Schnugg, both Alsatian illustrators. Later came Goya, Bosch, the Japanese graphic artists (Hokusaï, etc.), the old issues of Simplicissimus, and Wilhelm Busch.” The Poster Art of Tomi Ungerer, ed. Jack Rennert (New York: Darien House, Inc., 1971), 9. Especially on the series The Party, discussed in the second section of this text. Ungerer particularly focused on the phoney war (the earliest phase of World War II marked the lack of a major military response by the Western allies to German territorial expansion), the German occupation of Alsace, the battle over the territory known as the Colmar Pocket, and the Liberation of Alsace by France. He subsequently collected this reportage in A la Guerre comme à la guerre (Strasbourg: Editions La Nuée-Bleue/DNA, 1991). An English-language translation, Tomi: A Childhood under the Nazis followed (Lanham, MD: Roberts Rinehart, 1998). He also tried his hand at political critique in caricatures of the German army and Nazism, strongly inspired by the style of Hansi, who became famous for his caricatures of Germans during the annexation of Alsace between 1870 and 1918.

geology and mineralogy, he was not very motivated by his studies.8 He never stopped drawing. Macabre and desperate, his subjects were inspired by the existentialist current and aesthetically similar to the works of Rouault. Between 1953 and 1954, he was a student at the École des Arts Décoratifs in Strasbourg in the graphic design department. At this time, his inclination for mockery and the absurd drew him to the Dadaists and Surrealists9 —certain of their processes, such as collage and photomontage, suited his creativity perfectly.10 He soon made his mark in commercial art with campaigns for local companies, including Feyel foie gras and Alsace Dopff wines. His first poster was printed in 1954 for Schwindenhammer stationery, a company based in Turckheim in the Upper Rhein and the makers of Corona school notebooks. It demonstrates principles inspired by the great French poster artist Savignac. As explained by Ungerer, an advertisement had to “strike” the viewer’s eye.11 To achieve this, ideas were essential and had to be highlighted with simple, direct graphics and colors that contrasted with the black. 1957–1971: The “American Dream”

It was after a year of wandering through Europe that the idea occurred to Ungerer to leave for America. He was hanging out at the American cultural center in Strasbourg and had met some Fulbright students there. He read Faulkner, Fitzgerald, Steinbeck; he discovered jazz, blues, and the New Yorker, which published illustrations by Charles Addams, Peter Arno, Ralph Barton, James Thurber, and Saul Steinberg. (He was particularly fascinated by the way the latter managed to synthesize ideas and images in a stylized manner.)12 In 1956, Ungerer left 8

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He was meant to run the family business, making clocks, but failed the second part of his Math Baccalauréat in 1951. He then hitchhiked to Cap Nord, an expedition of which he was so proud he tried in vain to sell stories about it to the newspapers on his return. In spite of his disinclination for the army, he resolved to do his military service with the Méharistes (French camel army corps) in Algeria, in the camp of Zerakla, a name he would use for one of his heroines in a children’s book. As suggested by his sketches of studies of André Breton’s sculpture, L’esprit de notre temps, c. 1950s. Later he would acquire books by Max Ernst. Tomi Ungerer, Poster (Zurich: Diogenes Verlag, 1994), 5. The magazine developed an innovative formula upon its creation in 1925 that privileged high quality illustrations. It had a great impact on Europe after the war. In particular, Saul Steinberg’s drawings marked a whole generation of young European artists.

for New York—the city where everything seemed possible—with his manuscripts and drawings under his arm and sixty dollars and a few recommendations from Alsatian friends in his pocket. His “American dream” would come true the following year with the 1957 publication of a children’s book edited by Ursula Nordstrom at Harper & Brothers that met with immediate success: The Mellops Go Flying. As in the work of the fabulists of yesteryear and the noted nineteenthcentury caricaturist J.J. Grandville,13 a moral significance emerges from a story in which animals are equipped with human accoutrements. Ungerer made use of his drawing talent in other areas as well, including journalism and advertising. Starting in 1958, he contributed to magazines like Esquire, Fortune, Harper’s, Life, Holiday, and Show, along with other “New York cartoonists.”14 As with the great majority of these artists, his favorite technique at the time was drawing with ink, applied with a brush or as a wash, sometimes subtly elevated with a touch of color, most often on tracing paper. Most of his satirical works of the 1960s—Inside Marriage, The Underground Sketchbook, the lesser-known Der Herzinfarkt (Heart attack)—were made using this technique. In another series of the same period entitled Horrible, he employed the process of dessin-collage inherited from the Surrealists, adding a range of materials—scraps of photos, photocopies, fabrics, embroideries, dried plants, printed paper15 —to the ink drawings. Here, we already find the themes of anxiety toward mechanization and industrialization—toward modernity—which will recur throughout Ungerer’s work. Horrible, for example, depicts the invasion of machines in the contemporary world.16 According to Art Buchwald, who wrote the book’s preface, the artist’s youthful coexistence with astronomical clocks (those time machines), provoked his aversion to all things mechanical. The reality is more complex: Ungerer inherited a real

See especially Grandville’s Scènes de la Vie privée et publique des Animaux, 1841–1842 (Paris: Pierre-Jules Hetzel). As was the case for Saul Steinberg, this was a label he would later refute, even if it does reflect a reality. Some of the advertising images for the New York Times were collages made of elements from everyday life. The German version of the book is entitled Weltschmerz (sadness at the state of the world).

passion from his family for the cogs and workings that create movement; rather, he fears mechanization, a consequence of progress and industrialization, because it puts the human soul at risk of being lost. In The Underground Sketchbook, Ungerer pursues this idea and becomes, as Jonathan Miller says in his preface, “the chronicler of automated inhumanity.” In Der Herzinfarkt, Ungerer caustically takes on American efficiency in the world of business: like a veritable entomologist, he creates a new species called homo businiensis, whose vain race toward success and money can only be stopped by death.17 In Inside Marriage, the tone is light and humorous, in the spirit of Sempé, as he depicts romantic relationships and marriage.18 Neither partner emerges victorious here, but in The Underground Sketchbook and Adam und Eva, by contrast, the woman turns into a dominating, castrating monster. The work of this period also includes the 1966 book The Party, in which Ungerer began to settle scores with New York, the city he loved and hated at once. The critique he levels is all the more intense for focusing on a microcosm: the high society with which he was familiar for having frequented. In an extreme animalization of human beings, he creates a strange zoo whose inhabitants are monsters with the heads of octopuses and raptors with tentacles. Like his predecessor Daumier, Ungerer exaggerates reality to extract the truth in all its cruelty and like his elders George Grosz and Otto Dix, he paints a ferocious portrait of a decadent culture. In Fornicon (1969), he imagines his contemporaries engaging in sexual activities where machines provide the pleasure. Dislocated Barbie doll parts reassembled in montage19 seem to have served as models for these graphic representations, rendered even more cynical by his use of linear graphics in the style of Aubrey Beardsley. Meanwhile, Ungerer was becoming known as a poster artist. Advertising was experiencing a golden age in New York, and agencies 17

The book, which did not have an American publisher, was released in German by Diogenes Verlag. A few drawings that were considered too bold because of their sadomasochistic nature were removed from the book, which was published by Grove Press in 1960. The original drawings are held at the Musée Tomi Ungerer. He made about fifty of these erotic montages.

on Madison Avenue soon began fighting over this young artist who enchanted them as much with his irreverence as with his creativity. Many accounts were entrusted to him, notably a poster campaign for the New York Times, which covered the walls of the New York subway system. His credo when it came to advertising can be summarized by a slogan he thought up for the New York lottery: “Expect the Unexpected.”20 This element of surprise came in part from the use of some of the “ingredients” of satirical cartoons, such as exaggeration and the absurd. At the same time that he was making drawings for the advertising world,21 the artist created virulent protest posters concerning the American politics of the era, particularly on the topics of racism and the war in Vietnam.22 Certain of these images have become icons of the genre, most notably Black Power/White Power, the extremist attitude of both sides symbolized here by the borrowed motif of a playing card. Meanwhile, the war in Vietnam—the uselessness of which revolted the artist—was the subject of a series of posters commissioned and then rejected by Columbia University in 1967. Eat, Choice Not Chance, and Kiss for Peace, among others, were ultimately printed at the artist’s expense, with the help of his friend Richard Kasak. Ungerer also echoed America’s anxiety regarding atomic war during the Cold War era in poster projects for Stanley Kubrick’s film Dr. Strangelove. But America would soon be a bygone phase for him. Published after his departure from the United States in 1970, America and Totempole are books-as-testaments of that period. The former is a story in drawings almost sociological in nature about the different layers of the American population, the technical quality of its line reminiscent of that of his friend, Robert Weaver. In a very different vein, Totempole depicts sadomasochistic practices in the New York S/M community. The austerity of the drawings in soft-lead pencil, reinforced by

The tag line was ultimately used for the Village Voice. As its author has noted, the expression has since entered common parlance in New York. It is difficult to describe his advertising works as “commercial,” since Ungerer remained unconcerned about the risk of refusing a number of accounts. The political critique runs parallel to the advertising, not in opposition to it. He also published caricatures of Presidents Nixon and Johnson and satirical cartoons about domestic policies in the press, using national symbols like the Statue of Liberty and the character invented by Thomas Nast, Uncle Sam.

the contrast between the black accessories and the woman’s nudity, perhaps hark back to the puritanism of Ungerer’s Protestant origins. From 1971 to the Present: The Safe Havens of Canada and Ireland; Alsace, the Heimat 23

Having reached the pinnacle of success, Ungerer decided in 1970 to break with the life he had led until then, rejecting the hypocrisy and superficiality of New York society in order to step back and gain perspective.24 At Gull Harbor in Nova Scotia, the artist and his wife Yvonne restored an old building, raised livestock, farmed, and became passionate about nature and working with their hands. His artistic sights then turned toward Europe. Although two children’s books, No Kiss for Mother and The Storybook of Tomi Ungerer, were published in the United States, his titles were removed from public libraries because of his erotic work. European publishers, less prudish in this regard than their American counterparts, stepped in. It was the same in the field of advertising, whose market opened to him in Europe thanks to proposals from Robert Pütz, the director of a German agency.25 In this new life context, Ungerer would also take another artistic path, marked by the study of the great German masters Grünewald, Dürer, and Caspar David Friedrich. In Far Out isn’t Far Enough, he drew his environment in an almost academic way, and in Slow Agony, he gave in to pictorial temptation, combining soft-lead pencil and gouache on large surfaces.26 There was another departure in 1976, this time to Ireland. Ungerer’s creativity exploded then. His notoriety grew in Germany, thanks to the relationships initiated in 1971 in the world of advertising, with major campaigns for Bonduelle, Nixdorf, and Siegwerk Fabrik. But the work of the 1980s was marked above all by a thematic 23 24

An untranslatable German word meaning both “home” and “homeland.” This departure had nothing to do with the ecological movement of going back to nature that characterized the post-hippie years: “Das ist nicht romantisch, das ist realistisch,” Ungerer insisted in Das Tomi Ungerer Bilder-und Lesebuch (The Tomi Ungerer picture and reading book) (Zurich: Diogenes Verlag, 1981), 302. An interesting fact in Ungerer’s career: in 1972 he made the campaign posters for the SPD for future German chancellor Willy Brandt. The latter shows Canadian landscapes ruined by man; the former is an illustrated journal of the daily life of the Ungerers.

diversification, as witnessed in a creative practice that ranged from erotic drawing, with Femme Fatale and Schutzengel der Hölle (Guardian angels of hell), to social and political satire, with Babylon, Tomi Ungerer’s Schwarzbuch (Tomi Ungerer’s black book), and Symptomatics. Death is also a theme Ungerer intensively explored. A number of his drawings on the subject were collected in a book entitled Rigor Mortis. It is a memento mori that shows mankind confronting death in a vast array of situations, from the everyday to the exceptional. In it, he mines a rich iconography that includes Goya’s Disasters of War, José Guadalupe Posada’s Calaveras ,27 Gustave Doré’s illustration of Les Contes drôlatiques by Balzac, and especially the danses macabres of Baldung-Grien, Cranach, Deutsch, and Holbein. With Warteraum: Wiedersehen mit dem Zauberberg (Waiting room: goodbye to the Magic Mountain), which depicts the atmosphere of the old sanatoriums in Davos, he takes on the theme of time.28 To express the anxiety, both personal and universal, that Thomas Mann described in his novel, Ungerer chose a very classic graphic style that contrasts with the rest of his work. But he always counters Thanatos with Eros. Among other works, Hopp, hopp, hopp, The Joy of Frogs, and Tomi Ungerer’s Erzählungen für Erwachsene (Tomi Ungerer’s fables for adults) testify to these forces of life while expressing the colorful, Rabelaisian side of eroticism. During all these years, the artist never stopped nurturing a nostalgia for his Heimat. By inviting him to illustrate a book of German folk songs, the Zurich publisher Daniel Keel enabled him to reconnect with his native region.29 Indeed, the conception of Das große Liederbuch (The great song book), published in 1975, required the artist to make hundreds of sketches of Alsace, from memory or during brief visits, limned on loose sheets of paper and in notebooks. The style he used referenced the work of nineteenth-century artists, A Mexican draftsman and engraver of the nineteenth century in whose honor Ungerer made the unpublished drawing L’Hommage à Posada. 28 Warteraum includes the following quote from Mann’s text: “Was ist die Zeit? Ein Geheimnis—wesenlos und allmächtig” [What is time? A secret—insubstantial and omnipotent]. Ungerer is particularly sensitive to the theme of time due to his father’s family’s vocation. 29 As Ungerer observed, “En Alsace, j’ai trébuché sur mes racines” [In Alsace, I stumbled upon my roots]. Entretien pour l’Europe (Bühl-Moos: Elster Verlag, 1992), 15. 27

Alsatians such as Doré, Hansi, and Schnug, and Germans such as Busch, Friedrich, Spitzweg, and von Schwind. He paints a portrait of an ideal and romantic Alsace through its architectural and natural heritage and its personages, for example, Gustave Doré.30 A technical innovation further contributed to the quality of the drawings of Das große Liederbuch: Ungerer applied a wash of colored ink to the back of the sheet of tracing paper he worked on to highlight the transparency of the colors.31 The identity problems of the region compelled him all the more since he experienced its history of being pulled between France and Germany. In the 1980s, he was passionately engaged in preserving the regional sense of identity, in particular its dialect and bilingualism, as well as the Franco-German relationship that would allow it to become a motor of Europe. Witnessed from a vantage, the volume of Ungerer’s work is surprising, even troubling at times. His output—the result of sixty years of artistic creation—totals, in the artist’s estimate, somewhere between 30,000 and 40,000 drawings.32 In addition to the variety of graphic expression, his oeuvre is distinguished by the artist’s favorite field of observation: the society of his contemporaries. Nothing escapes the inquisitive eye of Ungerer, who seems to make the Roman playwright Terence’s precept his own: Homo sum: humani nihil a me alienum puto. (I am a man: nothing that is human is alien to me.) Through the essential details of his work, his sense of observation and the soberness of his line, coupled with his fondness for the absurd and for derisive resistance, Ungerer is naturally inscribed in the long history of satirical drawing. While his vision of the world is often cruel, it is not devoid of promise, as shown by the little boy watering a sprig of barbed wire in a drawing aptly titled Prinzip Hoffnung: the principle of hope.

31 32

Gustave Doré was born in Strasbourg, but spent most of his career in Paris. This mythic vision did not prevent Ungerer from casting a critical eye on Alsace, quite the contrary. See, for example, Mon Alsace [My Alsace], which includes satirical drawings of the region and its culture. It was a process the artist had already used but which he systematized in the book. Much of his work is held in public collections, the largest repository being the Musée Tomi Ungerer – Centre international de l’Illustration.

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Peter SĂs, Tomi, 2010

Tribute to Tomi Ungerer* Peter Sﾃ行

When I look back at my picture book career, there are some artists who influenced me more than others: my teachers Jirﾃｭ Trnka and Quentin Blake; Rockwell Kent; the amazing Saul Steinberg; Edward Gorey; Maurice Sendak; Leo Lionni; Etienne Delessert; Lisbeth Zwerger; and many others I might not recall right this minute窶ｦ I have a particular admiration for Tomi Ungerer. He is, of course, a famous, well-established, bigger-than-life working in all media and speaking on many subjects. I have been aware of his work ever since attending art school in Prague. He became an early influence in my life in many ways. How would it happen? How did a student of the Communist Academy of Applied Arts in Prague, isolated behind the iron curtain, learn about an Alsatian artist living far away in New York City? As luck would have it, the American master of animated films, Gene Deitch, together with his Czech wife, Zdenka, *A version of this text and its accompanying illustration appeared in Du Magazine, December 2010, and is reprinted here with kind permission.

were producing films in Prague for the American company Weston Woods. These films were mostly based on award-winning American picture books. They were not available to the general Czech public; indeed, they were kept secret in our totalitarian state. But we—the art students—were often fortunate enough to see some of them. Thus, I encountered Ungerer’s The Three Robbers, Moon Man, and The Beast of Monsieur Racine early on and was duly impressed! These films also included interviews with Ungerer, and the whole experience changed my life. Here was a handsome, hip man—a great artist with very smart ideas—who was creating children’s books and advertising in America! What a difference from our grey world, the depressed artists who were our teachers, and our political frustration! Ungerer was like rock ‘n’ roll, and I loved American rock. I wanted to be like him. I wished I could draw like him. (I still do!) I didn’t know any other artist who could tackle a subject with such an intense drive and focus, seemingly with ease. His “power of line” is so amazing! What do I mean by “power of line?” Michael Patrick Hearn says, “Ungerer is a master at doing so much with so little.” Randolph Caldecott described this method of drawing and illustrating as “the art of leaving out as a science.” He says, “The less lines, the less errors committed.” I couldn’t say it better. I only wish always to remember this truth in my own work. But it’s not just the style; Ungerer’s style goes hand in hand with his ideas for his books. He tries everything with equal enthusiasm and in any kind of media: pencil; crayon; charcoal; chalk; felt-tip pen; ink; watercolor; tempera; oil; collage; and sculpture. He masters them all. I found out later that he once said, “I enjoy trying different ways of expression to break the monotony. I hate to repeat myself in a formula!” Thank you teacher! I’m trying to do the same! In fact, without having an exact plan, I’m following Ungerer’s example way beyond his art and drawing. While still in art school, I became part of the celebrated Czechoslovak animation film industry known as the Kratky Film Studios. I won prestigious awards at film festivals, among them the Golden Bear in West Berlin, and I was invited to make films in Hollywood. When things didn’t work out the way I imagined, I didn’t return to Communist Czechoslovakia, but, with the help of Maurice Sendak (who was then talking about the magnificent Tomi Ungerer!), I found

myself in New York City as an illustrator. Now, looking back, I would say I was fortunate. I did get immediate opportunities to work in editorial and children’s book illustration. But, at the time, it wasn’t all that easy. New York is big, and I had to establish myself. “Will I be able to make it?” “Can I pay the rent?” Those were the questions of the day! All of a sudden Tomi Ungerer (who, along with Maurice Sendak, was the most celebrated author/illustrator) became a big part of my life, although I’d never met him personally. I was trying to come up with a book of my own, getting little attention from most of the publishers. When illustrating books for other authors, my first publisher was Greenwillow Books. Susan Hirschman, its founder and editor, showed me Ungerer’s Crictor as an example of the perfect picture book. I recall her saying, “because of what he leaves out in the text and puts into the pictures.” And was I ever looking for snakes, cats, dogs, and any other creature in those days! My first book as an author and illustrator was the story of a Rhinoceros (!), Rainbow Rhino. It’s quite amazing that what helped me most in those early days in New York was a story about Tomi Ungerer’s life. Apparently, he came to America with just a few dollars in his pocket, worked hard, and within seven years, drove a Bentley to his big house in the Hamptons! It sounds rather silly today, but during many desperate and dark moments in my life as an aspiring illustrator all those years ago, it gave me hope. I remember thinking, “OK, things do not look good, but I still have four (4), I still have three (3), I have two (2) years to make it like Ungerer!” It got me through. I still do not drive a Bentley! But thank you, Tomi! Finally, I met Ungerer in person. I attended a lecture by him at the Cooper Union, and it was like a rock concert! He had long hair, cowboy boots, was cocky and arrogant—a far cry from the grey and mousy illustrators I was used to (including myself). Way to go! Alas, now I know, I should have paid more attention to what he had to say about how the illustrator’s world swings up and down in a place like New York City! But I was young and looking for light…and I found my place. I give my own book lectures and have found my own voice. I’ve probably had some influence on other people’s lives, hopefully in a good way, like Ungerer had on mine.

Looking at the history of children’s books, I know now that Tomi Ungerer helped to change this industry and the way we think about education. As Maurice Sendak said, “Tomi influenced everybody. His coming in was just a colossal addition to the profession. No one, I dare to say, no one was as original as Tomi Ungerer.” I toast to that. No wonder Ungerer was appointed Ambassador to the Council of Europe for Childhood and Education. To this day, I’m amazed. With most children’s-picture-book artists, the thinking/sketching process seems to be somehow removed from the final execution. But with Ungerer’s work, one has a feeling of continuous drive from the idea to the finished book. His books transmit the energy and the joy of creation. How I wish I could do that! He’s still my role model! “Tomi Ungerer has never failed the picture book,” Sendak further observed. I could not agree more!

“Drawing is the most direct and personal kind of graphic expression. Unlike painting, it doesn’t forgive. You put down your black line, and there it is—as inevitable as death.”

Ungerer quoted in Selma G. Lanes, “Peck’s Bad Boy of Art,” New York Times Magazine, May 24, 1981, http://www.nytimes.com/1981/05/24/magazine/peck-s-bad-boy-of-art.html.

DON’T HOPE, COPE! Tomi Ungerer

It is still a recurrent nightmare. I am walking down Fifth Avenue in the five-o’clock rush, through pouring rain, umbrellas clawing at each other. A bloke in a slicker is handing out leaflets. Given a quick glance, they are tossed into puddles. I take one. It’s an original drawing of mine. “For heaven’s sake, he is giving away my work!” I retrace my way, salvaging whichever pieces of paper are still drowning in the gutter. This dream must find its source in my earliest days in New York. (I arrived in 1956.) Running from one appointment to another to sell my work to publishers, magazines, and ad agencies, I carried my drawings in a paper shopping bag. One day I was caught in a downpour on Broadway and 43rd Street and took shelter-skelter in a pharmacy. I asked for a cardboard box to give my samples a safe haven. Wish granted, I went to my next appointment. I entered the art director’s office and deposited my carton on his desk. His face broke out in a puzzled grin, followed by outright guffaws. It turned out that, in his kindness, the pharmacy clerk had given me a wholesale

box for Trojan contraceptives. Only later that evening did my girlfriend explain what the brand stood for. I kept the box until I had enough money to afford a proper portfolio. It became my own trademark and with its subversive contents, fitted the fabled Greek epic: the Trojan Horse disgorging its consequences. I was even welcomed as “Lord Condom.” The lesson? Whatever you are up to, make yourself noticed. Anyway, drawings, like condoms and banana peels, can be very slippery. I had fallen in love with New York City. It was a dream come true, oneirically peopled with generous, open-minded folk. I felt welcome everywhere. To this day, I can feel its pent-up energy, the tingling excitement of the unexpected, the farfetched within reach. My sense of humor flourished by osmosis; New York replaced all other muses and became my source of inspiration. I was successful from the start. I shall mention here a few of my abodes, reflective of my ascent. I started out in a dingy dark basement room in the West 70s. My Irish landlady, with a teetering inclination for whisky, was a “Madame” of some renown who once ran Chicago’s biggest and most plush bordello. A few years later I bought my first brownstone in the Village, formerly Aaron Burr’s house (fittingly of ill repute). I had it painted in pink, the only building of its color in Manhattan. Later, I established my studio on 42nd Street and Broadway in New York’s “shameful,” riffraff porno district in the former office of Flo Ziegfeld. It was oak paneled, with mullioned windows, and a Feliniesque corner terrace ornamented with huge convoluted ceramic scrolls. A perfect nest for my follies. Then there was my “manse” in East Hampton. Sometimes, I would sit on my portico with a willing slave tied to one of its columns. Equipped with my high velocity Remington, I would lie in wait for the guests of my party-loving neighbor, the son of Max Ernst. It was mischievously that I triggered my whizzing bullets over his ducking guests. I always kept a silver one for Peggy Guggenheim,

but I didn’t know what she looked like. Little did he know that I was the one who broke into his house with a female acquaintance during his absence, leaving behind an empty bottle of Veuve Clicquot and crumpled bed sheets. So much for the art scene! Yet, in East Hampton, other rebellious minds were at work as well; I was not the only one! There is one party I remember, given by a famous psychiatrist who lived down the lane. In the middle of the hubbub, his mother descended the stairs with regal dignity, aimed for the carpeted floor, squatted, and, raising her skirts, drowned Oedipus in a ruinous puddle. I applauded. Where others had parties, I had a ball. This is but one example of my pooling sources of inspiration. My pranks, mostly of dubious taste, were my anger’s safety valve—a way to put into practice the sheer and unshorn provocation of my satirical work. Spreading anarchy by means of the absurd was part of my creative process. My reputation? A balancing act between the good and the worst. My last residence was a duplex on MacDougal Street, occupied already by a thumping, furniture-moving poltergeist. Standing alone in the living room, I would speak to him, asking him to please keep quiet! Many female companions will tell you about the footsteps climbing the stairs, the lights turning on and off, and the shadow under the door that when opened, revealed nothing! Perhaps it was not a poltergeist but my alter ego gone gaga. Was my presence in New York like my poltergeist in this apartment? Today, looking back, I would say “yes!” After sixteen years—blacklisted in the American customs register, my books officially banned from all public libraries—like a rat, I left my leaking yellow submarine. The Trojan horse was now hollow and empty. Having met my wife and sold my caramel Bentley, I went back to where I came from via Nova Scotia. My affair with New York, like a love affair with one’s passionate and willing muse, had ended. I arrived in New York, welcomed by the Statue of Liberty, but soon realized that she was turning her back on America. These were the McCarthy years after all and New York was a liberal fortress. The

USA was still segregated, and I found myself allergic to its way of life. It became the target of my mephitic comments. By 1970, I had already exhibited in two well-situated galleries in New York. My paintings and sculptures were displayed at the D’Arcy Gallery: no sales, no reviews. The other show at the Waddell Gallery was of my Fornicon drawings. Same flop. Not a peep. I sold a single drawing to British artist Allen Jones. I asked a friend, a reputed art critic, why he wouldn’t write about my show. “Tomi,” he told me, “if I did, I’d lose my reputation.” I stopped painting. I went to see Leo Castelli, Andy Warhol’s gallerist. He very kindly told me how much he liked my work, but explained that I was already branded as a “commercial artist.” I was a pariah in a world of “fine art,” and the supposed “art world” was out of bounds—I didn’t fit into any category, be it Abstract Expressionism, Pop, Op, or Mop! I felt pigeonholed like a hawk. The cleft was even worse with the “children’s-book world,” where my erotic work made me a pestiferous outcast. Politically, technically, erotically incorrect: I was a misfit and, in my own way, I enjoyed it. Relegated, I just felt free. Now, “once upon a time” is once again. All these stories have the quality of dreams come true: they are convincingly absurd. So is my work. To be milked, dreams must be taken for granted. My freedom of expression is a priority. I never was a joiner; fads, fashions, and trends are a form of tyranny. I love to buzz, butinating whatever art form comes across my path. It is simply too boring to cling to one style and be stuck, mired in one formula. I need the constant challenge of forays into new techniques and new interpretations. Fundamentally, I consider myself to be what the French call a dessinateur, a zeichner in German. In English, a drawer—normally part of a chest or piece of furniture, someone tapping a beer keg, or with an “s,” a piece of underwear. No muse has ever been attributed to drawing, usually relegated to a No Man’s Land between art and craftsmanship. The Drawing Center is a rare exception and the only museum of its kind that I know: a dedicated institution; a

rehabilitation center; and an asylum for many talented artists whose line of work remains neglected or forgotten. Considering that I started my career in New York, having this exhibition brings me back to where it all began, with ingrown gratitude. Criminals, it seems, are drawn back to the scenes of their misdeeds. Ever since I was born, I perceived myself constantly as an exile; a commuter going back to where I came from. At nineteen, when hitchhiking, I crossed the iron curtain into Lapland and was able to get back out. I realized that borders were meant to be double-crossed. With my chamelionism, I am always adapting to be adopted. My identity is split as a banana. I am a Jekyll playing Hyde and seek. My drawing and my writing know no demarcation line. Even Death is but an emigration officer. Expect the unexpected! Shall I rest in pieces or peaces? “To was or not to was!” Time I hope will never tell—a question sometimes is more salient than the answer. Don’t hope, cope!

Childhood Drawing

In Ungerer’s words, “As far as I can go back, I feel fear, fear of life. And this is good because once you have fear, you have to discover courage to survive.”1 From the sudden and untimely death of his father when he was three years old to living through the annexation of French-controlled Alsace by Nazi Germany from 1940 to 1945, Tomi’s childhood was a lesson in instability, doubt, and the proximity of evil. Split between three cultures—as Ungerer describes it, he was German at school, French at home, and Alsatian in the streets— his early life also provided an important lesson in relativity, “in figuring out for myself who were the good guys and who were the bad.”2 Young Tomi was a mediocre student, but his talent for drawing was spotted immediately and encouraged. (In the words of one of his schoolmasters, “the Führer needs artists.”3) Assembled here is a selection of the numerous drawings Tomi produced between the ages of seven and thirteen. Even at this young age, Tomi was a subversive. Alongside his dutifully rendered school assignments are private journals filled with irreverent send-ups of the Nazi regime as well as images depicting a child’s view of violence both witnessed and imagined. Taken together, the drawings stand as a document of the rapid change Ungerer experienced in a mere five years.

Tomi Ungerer quoted in Far Out Isn’t Far Enough: The Tomi Ungerer Story, a documentary film directed by Brad Bernstein (2012). Ungerer quoted in Selma G. Lanes, “Peck’s Bad Boy of Art,” New York Times Magazine, May 24, 1981, http://www.nytimes.com/1981/05/24/magazine/peck-s-badboy-of-art.html. Ungerer quoted in Far Out Isn’t Far Enough: The Tomi Ungerer Story.

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Vive Mikey..., 1938

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Untitled, 1940

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Un Juif (A Jew), 1941

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Fourth Form Notebook, 1941

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Untitled, 1944

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Untitled, 1942

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Untitled, 1940â&#x20AC;&#x201C;41

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Untitled, 1944

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Untitled, 1943

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Deutschland! (Germany!), 1943

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Mon Journal (My journal), 1943â&#x20AC;&#x201C;44

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Untitled, 1945

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Untitled, c. 1945

“In every one of my books I can find myself. Every book is a mirror of several aspects of my life or my personality. …They happen to be children’s books and they have been labeled children’s books, but they are my books for my own pleasure, and I would say [for the] child in me.”

Ungerer quoted in “Tomi Ungerer: Storyteller,” a recorded interview with Gene Deitch, 2011, http://genedeitchcredits.com/roll-the-credits/54-tomi-ungerer-2/.

Children’s Books

Ungerer arrived in New York in late 1956 with a stash of drawings and sixty dollars in his pocket. When he finally made it to the doorstep of legendary children’s book editor Ursula Nordstrom at Harper & Brothers, he was physically ill and full of despair. Nordstrom offered the distraught artist her handkerchief saying, “Don’t be nervous, I love your work, you’ve come home.”1 Although Nordstrom felt that the drawings Ungerer showed her featuring a family of pigs were too dark to publish, she liked the characters and advised him to develop a full-length book around them. Thus resulted the Mellops series in which a father pig and his four sons go on a series of near fatal adventures, always to return home to mother pig who greets them with a freshly baked cream cake. (Feminists criticized his portrayal of traditional domestic roles but, in typical Ungerer fashion, he remained uncowed, and the trope stayed in the books.) During the 1960s and early 1970s in New York, Ungerer published numerous books for children united by their unlikely protagonists, including Crictor (1958), Adelaide (1959), Emil (1960), Rufus (1961), The Three Robbers (1962), and Moon Man (1967). He has observed of his unusual cast of characters: “Oh yes, rats, vultures, bats and so on… the three robbers, they turn out to do a lot of good for society, and you know, why not? You have to give everybody a bit of a chance.”2

Ungerer quoted in Tomi Ungerer: Chronicler of the Absurd (Amherst, MA: The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art, 2011), 8. Ungerer quoted in “Tomi Ungerer: Storyteller,” a recorded interview with Gene Deitch, 2011, http://genedeitchcredits.com/roll-the-credits/54-tomi-ungerer-2/.

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Untitled, 1960 (variation on The Mellops)

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Untitled, 1960 (variation on The Mellops)

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Untitled, 1958 (drawing for Emil)

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Untitled, 1961 (variation on Rufus)

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Untitled, 1961 (drawing for The Three Robbers)

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Untitled, 1961 (drawing for The Three Robbers)

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Untitled, 1966 (drawing for Moon Man)

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The Hat, 1969 (drawing for The Hat)

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Untitled, c. 1968 (drawing for The Hat)

1960s Advertising

Advertising design had been Ungerer’s main preoccupation in Strasbourg in the 1950s, and he set about forging contacts in the New York advertising world upon his arrival. His first New York commission was for Burroughs adding machines. He went on to work with a wide range of companies, including the Ice Capades, the New York State Lottery, Swissair, Aqueduct Raceway, and Kent cigarettes. Among Ungerer’s most memorable campaigns were those for the New York Times and the Village Voice where the artist was entrusted with designing posters for display throughout the transit system, including subway stations and cars, railroad and air terminals, and delivery trucks. Tomi designed two campaigns for the New York Times, one in 1960 and another in 1965 for which he interpreted the theme “You Can Tell the Adults by the Paper they Read.” He was perhaps proudest of his campaign for the Village Voice where his tagline “Expect the Unexpected,” which had been rejected by the New York State Lottery for which it was originally intended, proved the perfect fit. According to the artist, “To me poster remained the queen of media. ...It all relies on first sight. ...Creating a poster thus represents an incredible challenge. As always in advertising, what counts is the idea, enhanced by a graphic design that should be as simple and direct as possible.”1

Ungerer quoted in Zut! (Special issue on Ungerer), N. 1 (December, 2011), 159.

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Untitled, 1965 (preparatory drawing for The New York Times has it!: People who Want Variety Read the New York Times)

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Untitled, 1965

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Untitled, 1968

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Untitled, 1968

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Untitled, 1967

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Untitled, 1965

“I’ve always been literally a lover of the absurd. I think the absurd gives a new dimension to reality and even to common sense. And life, you know, on an everyday basis, is absurd, or may turn out to be absurd. There’s no reality without absurdity.”

“Tomi Ungerer Interview Part One” from the blog Vintage Kids’ Books My Kid Loves, July 1, 2013, http://www.vintagechildrensbooksmykidloves.com/search?q=Tomi+Ungerer.

Fables for Adults

Even as Ungerer was busy authoring books for children, he was hard at work on what Thérèse Willer, curator of the Musée Tomi Ungerer in Strasbourg, has referred to as “fables for adults,” books of satirical drawings that address social ills and foibles. The drawings assembled here come from Der Herzinfarkt (Heart attack) and The Underground Sketchbook, published in 1962 and 1964, respectively, and The Party, Ungerer’s self-published take-down of New York elite society, a world into which the artist’s growing reputation had secured him introduction. Der Herzinfarkt takes on the American business world, while The Underground Sketchbook addresses more insidious evils, like the brutality of war and mechanized violence. In both cases, Ungerer was deeply influenced by Saul Steinberg, whose work he first discovered at the American Cultural Institute in Strasbourg. In Ungerer’s words, “Saul Steinberg taught me how to rationalize, how to distill an idea, to turn it, thanks to a maximum economy of the gesture, to express the essential.”1 Two decades later, he would employ this technique to devastating effect in the brutal images from his meditation on death, Rigor Mortis. Meanwhile, in The Party, published in 1966, we meet such outrageous characters as Mrs. Julia Van Flooze and Major Lewis Rumpstick, each executed in unforgiving black ink against empty white grounds. Distorted by animal appendages and mechanical limbs, The Party’s “beautiful set” is a parade of monsters.

Ungerer quoted in Tomi Ungerer et ses maîtres: Inspirations et dialogues (Strasbourg: Éditions des Musées de Strasbourg, 2011), 29. Translation by Claire Gilman.

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Untitled, 1962 [variation on Der Herzinfarkt (Heart attack)]

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Untitled, c. 1962 [variation on Der Herzinfarkt (Heart attack)]

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Untitled, 1962 [variation on Der Herzinfarkt (Heart attack)]

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Untitled, 1962 [variation on Der Herzinfarkt (Heart attack)]

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Cranking Up (or, Until So We Conk Out), c. 1962 [variation on Der Herzinfarkt (Heart attack)]

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Untitled, 1962 [variation on Der Herzinfarkt (Heart attack)]

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Untitled, 1961 (drawing for The Underground Sketchbook)

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Untitled, c. 1964 (variation on The Underground Sketchbook)

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Untitled, c. 1964 (variation on The Underground Sketchbook)

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Untitled, c. 1964 (variation on The Underground Sketchbook)

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Untitled, 1966 (drawing for The Party)

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Untitled, 1966 (drawing for The Party)

“Basically, these are my bêtes noires: racism, fascism, extremism, terrorism, and above all the monster of violence. The violence by which man seeks to assert himself, that grave human malady, that cancer bristling with spears and machine guns.”

Tomi Ungerer, 33 Spective (Strasbourg: Anstett, 1990), n.p. Translation by Jeanine Herman.

Political Posters

Among Ungerer’s most haunting and memorable images are those he produced for a series of posters protesting the Vietnam War in 1967. The posters were originally commissioned by Columbia University, but they were ultimately deemed too provocative and were refused. Ungerer subsequently self-published them with the help of his friend, poster editor Richard Kasak. Even today the grotesque brutality of the posters is startling and difficult to take; indeed, Ungerer holds nothing back, even as he implicates himself in the process. As one writer puts it, looking at this body of work “at some visceral level, the viewer experiences an almost equivalent distaste for the brutality of the artist’s own imagery.”1 This is particularly true of Black Power/ White Power, Ungerer’s graphic response to racial injustice. Now an icon of political posters, this inflammatory image targets not simply racism against African Americans, but extremism on both sides. Of this body of work Ungerer observes, “I create political drawing because I feel the need for it. Because I am angry.”2

Ungerer quoted in Selma G. Lanes, “Peck’s Bad Boy of Art,” New York Times Magazine, May 24, 1981, http://www.nytimes.com/1981/05/24/magazine/peck-s-bad-boy-of-art. html. Ungerer quoted in Zut! (special issue on Ungerer), N. 1 (December, 2011), 78.

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Choice Not Chance, 1967

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Eat, 1967

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Give, 1967 (preparatory drawing for self-published poster)

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Give, 1967

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Black Power/White Power, 1967

The Canada Years and Family Life

New York City had been good to Ungerer (to this day he calls it his favorite city), but after more than a decade living there, he began to tire of its relentless pace and social scene, not to mention its denizens’ puritanical response to the erotic drawings he began making in the late 1960s. Following a holiday spent in Nova Scotia, a recently married Ungerer and his wife, Yvonne, decided to relocate in 1971. Their house stood on a peninsula reachable only in low tide with the nearest town two miles away. In his words, “without realizing it, we established a farm; yet we never became real farmers…. It was for us a way of collecting experiences, curiosity about what we had never done before.”1 The drawings made during his time mark a parenthesis of sorts in his creative process: “I needed to discover a new sense of measure,” Ungerer has observed, and his Canada drawings are indeed among his most personal and direct.2 Rather than crafting images in the service of text or social commentary, he went straight to his surroundings, producing exquisite observational drawings of farm life, the rough Canadian landscape, and portraits of his new wife. Ultimately the Ungerers deemed the landscape too rough and the political climate too reactionary for raising a family. In 1976, while Yvonne was pregnant with their first child, Aria, they moved to Ireland, where they have lived ever since. Seven years later, Ungerer produced two books about his Canadian years. Slow Agony features large-scale drawings of abandoned houses and cars executed in ink-wash, gouache, and grease crayon. Far Out isn’t Far Enough: Life in the Back of Beyond is a diaristic narrative interspersed with vibrant images of daily life. While making these books, Ungerer was immersed in his growing family and depicted his wife and children with an intimacy that recalls his Canada work.

Ungerer, Far Out isn’t Far Enough: Life in the Back of Beyond (London/New York: Phaidon Press Limited, 2011), 11. Ungerer quoted in Tomi Ungerer: Les années canadiennes: “Here Today, Gone Tomorrow” (Strasbourg: Éditions des Musées de Strasbourg, 2010), 28.

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No Parking Please, 1971â&#x20AC;&#x201C;83 (variation on Slow Agony)

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“Church Bus/I Fixed it Up with Jesus a Long Long Time ago,” 1971–83 (drawing for Slow Agony)

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Power Line, 1971â&#x20AC;&#x201C;83 (variation on Slow Agony)

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Untitled, 1971â&#x20AC;&#x201C;83 (variation on Slow Agony)

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Untitled (Wisdom has Built her House she has Set Seven Pillars; Wisdom hath Built her House, she hath Hewn Out her Seven Pillars, Proverbs 9-1), 1971â&#x20AC;&#x201C;83 (drawing for Slow Agony)

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Untitled (Yvonne Feeding Tiger), 1973 [variation on Heute hier, morgen fort (Here today, gone tomorrow)]

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Untitled, 1973 [variation on Heute hier, morgen fort (Here today, gone tomorrow)]

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Untitled, 1971â&#x20AC;&#x201C;76 [variation on Heute hier, morgen fort (Here today, gone tomorrow)]

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Untitled, 1973 [variation on Heute hier, morgen fort (Here today, gone tomorrow)]

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Untitled, 1974 [variation on Heute hier, morgen fort (Here today, gone tomorrow)]

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Untitled, 1973 [variation on Heute hier, morgen fort (Here today, gone tomorrow)]

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Et Tu Brutus? (Sasha), 1973â&#x20AC;&#x201C;74 [variation on Heute hier, morgen fort (Here today, gone tomorrow)]

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Untitled (Muskrat), 1974 [variation on Heute hier, morgen fort (Here today, gone tomorrow)]

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Untitled (Yvonne Reading to Aria), 1978

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Untitled (Aria Washing Dishes), 1979

Das Große Liederbuch (The great song book)

In the late 1960s, Ungerer’s Swiss publisher, Diogenes Verlag, commissioned the artist to illustrate a collection of popular German folk songs; Das große Liederbuch was finally published in 1975. It was an unlikely subject for the rebellious artist, but he came to see it as an important political gesture. In Tomi’s words: “For us Alsatians, the songs express our Rhineian identity. My grandfather, my great grandfather sang them years before and us too in our house. These songs were exploited by Nazi propaganda to exalt the Germanic race, to the point that after the war, they were incinerated as a form of retaliation. I believe that the Liederbuch was an instrument of liberation that rehabilitated this patrimony: from these traditions was nourished the popular spirit in its historical and genealogical depths. I illustrated these songs with Alsatian landscapes, so that my contemporaries could rediscover the honor and pride of their German origin. This book, which I conceived in Canada, marked the return to my roots.”1 (It is a matter of debate whether the book was the brainchild of Ungerer’s publisher or jointly conceived.) The book was a tremendous success and sold well over a million copies—more than any previous juvenile title from the Swiss publisher. The romantic drawings, which manifest the deliberate influence of the German tradition and artists like Caspar David Friedrich, reveal yet another side of the Alsatian artist.

Tomi Ungerer, 33 Spective (Strasbourg: Anstett, 1990), n.p. Translation by Claire Gilman.

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Untitled, 1975 [drawing for the song “O Tannenbaum” (O Christmas tree) in Das große Liederbuch (The great song book)]

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Untitled, 1975 [drawing for the song “Muß i denn, muß i denn, zum Städtele ’naus” (The girl I left behind me) in Das große Liederbuch (The great song book)]

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Untitled, 1974 [variation on the song “Nun ade, du mein lieb’ Heimatland” (Farewell, oh my dear fatherland) in Das große Liederbuch (The great song book)]

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Untitled, n.d. [drawing for the song “Allelujah” in Das große Liederbuch (The great song book)]

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Untitled (Strasbourg 1871), 1975 [variation on the song “Ich hatt’ einen Kameraden” (I had a comrade) in Das große Liederbuch (The great song book)]

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Untitled, 1975 [variation on the song “Ich hatt’ einen Kameraden” (I had a comrade) in Das große Liederbuch (The great song book)]

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Untitled, 1974 [variation on the song “Ich hatt’ einen Kameraden” (I had a comrade) in Das große Liederbuch (The great song book)]

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Untitled, n.d. [preparatory drawing for “Muß i denn, muß i denn, zum Städtele ’naus” (The girl I left behind me) in Das große Liederbuch (The great song book)]

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Untitled, n.d. [preparatory drawing for “Muß i denn, muß i denn, zum Städtele ’naus” (The girl I left behind me”) in Das große Liederbuch (The great song book)]

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Untitled, n.d. [preparatory drawing for the song “Ich hatt’ einen Kameraden” (I had a comrade) in Das große Liederbuch (The great song book)]

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Untitled, n.d. [preparatory drawing for “Ein Jäger aus Kurpfalz” (A hunter from Kurpfalz) in Das große Liederbuch (The great song book)]

Advertising Post-New York

Ungerer’s move to Canada was motivated in part by his desire to withdraw from commercial enterprises; however, shortly after his departure, he was pursued in Nova Scotia by Robert Pütz, owner of a small but highly respected advertising agency in Cologne. Pütz convinced Ungerer to return to advertising, and the two struck up a partnership that would last for over twenty years. One of the duo’s most successful campaigns was for Bonduelle, a French canning firm for which Ungerer produced a memorable image of a roast turkey dousing itself in a can of the client’s small green peas. Another campaign for the German printing ink manufacturer Regenbogen featured a series of whimsical and tender scenes incorporating the company’s titular motif, the rainbow.

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Untitled, 1975 (drawing for Regenbogen Siegwerk Farben printing inks)

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Untitled, 1975 (drawing for Regenbogen Siegwerk Farben printing inks)

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Regenbogen Bogen (Rainbow bow), 1975 (drawing for Regenbogen Siegwerk Farben printing inks)

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Untitled, 1975 (drawing for Regenbogen Siegwerk Farben printing inks)

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Untitled, c. 1976

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Untitled, c. 1976 (preparatory drawing for Bonduelle canned peas)

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Untitled, c. 1976 (preparatory drawing for Bonduelle canned peas)

Return to Public Life

Ungerer’s relocation to Ireland in 1976 brought with it a return to his inflammatory subjects and uncompromising approach, as evidenced by a spate of books dissecting contemporary civilization, including Babylon, Symptomatics, and Rigor Mortis, published in 1979, 1982, and 1983, respectively. Symptomatics addresses the side effects of rapid mechanization and industrialization—stress, fatigue, guilt, anxiety and depression—drawing in several cases on a manual on depression that Ungerer produced for Geigy Pharmaceuticals in 1972. Rigor Mortis takes these themes one step further with images that are among the artist’s most brutal and unforgiving. Ungerer cites Goya’s Disasters of War as well as Albrecht, Dürer, and Hans Holbein as influences, and some of the drawings, like the pietà of a weeping skeleton-mother and her dead skeleton-child, recall the human depravity pictured in his 1960s anti-war posters. More lighthearted in its approach is Babylon, whose compendium of character types includes the “industrialist,” the “guru,” and the “male chauvinist pig.” The drawings produced for this book are some of Ungerer’s finest and yet, as he explains it, they did not come easily: “I think of this [Babylon] as a book of drawing/writing…. Technically these drawings which seem to have been thrown on the page gave me a lot of trouble … of the first drawing … for example, there exist thirtyeight versions. In general, I prefer redoing a drawing than using an eraser to correct it. It is easy to have an idea; it is much more difficult to realize it. The best idea in the world doesn’t mean anything if one doesn’t give it wheels, a mechanism to make it work.”1

Ungerer, 33 Spective (Strasbourg: Anstett, 1990), n.p. Translation by Claire Gilman.

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Untitled (We Want Mothers), 1977â&#x20AC;&#x201C;79 (drawing for Babylon)

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Untitled, 1977â&#x20AC;&#x201C;79 (drawing for Babylon)

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Waiting for Something to Happen (But What?), 1977â&#x20AC;&#x201C;79 (drawing for Babylon)

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Hurried, 1982 (variation on Symptomatics)

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Untitled, 1972â&#x20AC;&#x201C;82 (variation on Symptomatics)

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Untitled, 1982 (drawing for Symptomatics)

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Untitled, 1982 (variation on Symptomatics)

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Untitled, 1982 (variation on Symptomatics)

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Fear of Feelings, 1982 (drawing for Symptomatics)

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Untitled, 1982 (drawing for Symptomatics)

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Der Unterrichter (The teacher), c. 1980 (drawing for Rigor Mortis)

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Schwips! (Drunk!), c. 1980 (variation on Rigor Mortis)

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Untitled (After the Bombing), c. 1980 (variation on Rigor Mortis)

Political Engagement

In the 1990s, Ungerer became newly invested in politics playing an instrumental role in major campaigns for human rights, European integration, and Franco-German relations. As always, his bêtes noires were racism, fascism, extremism, and violence of all kinds. These concerns are apparent in Pig Heil!, a selfcommissioned limited edition poster targeting Neo-Nazism, and Pas de liberté sans liberté de la presse (No freedom without freedom of the press), a poster commissioned by the global non-profit group Reporters without Borders. They are equally evident in Otto: The Autobiography of a Teddy Bear (1999), Ungerer’s third children’s book after a hiatus of some twenty years. The book is told firsthand by Otto, a teddy bear who is separated from the German-Jewish boy to whom he belongs, lives through World War II, and is reunited with his original owner fifty years later in New York City. Along the way, he miraculously saves the life of an American G.I. It is an emotionally rending tale that highlights Ungerer’s unwillingness to shelter children from difficult themes. It also resonates with his upbringing: young Tomi’s own teddy bear, dressed like Otto in striped pajamas, was ever at the ready in his backpack in case his family was forced to evacuate Strasbourg. Indeed, several of the book’s images, like that of the ghost teddy bear at the window, derive directly from childhood experiences.

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Pas de libertĂŠ de la presse (No freedom without freedom of the press), 1992

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Pig Heil!, 1994

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Untitled, 1999 (drawing for Otto)

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Untitled, 1999 (drawing for Otto)

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Untitled, 1999 (drawing for Otto)

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Untitled, 1999 (drawing for Otto)

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Untitled, 1999 (drawing for Otto)

Fog Island

In 2013, Ungerer published Fog Island, a children’s book that he calls his tribute to Ireland. It tells the story of a brother and sister who live on the Irish coast and whose boat is caught in a storm and transported to Fog Island, a mysterious place from which no one returns alive. Nonetheless, the brother and sister are not scared, and they end up meeting the magical master of the island, a long-haired man who controls the fog. In making the drawings for this book, Ungerer laid the background on one side of the paper, letting the color fade out at the edges, and added foreground elements on the other side. The result is a series of haunting images with an air of distanced unreality. Of this project, Ungerer has observed: “There is a lot of us, of me and Yvonne when we arrived here, some of the neighbors, the solidarity and all that. ...I don’t think since Liederbuch I have done anything I put my heart into as much as I did this book. I gave my feelings free range. ...Of all the children’s books I have done, this is the one I would say I was most impatient…to share.”1

“Tomi Ungerer talks about Fog Island,” 2013, YouTube video, 25:12, https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=nc0CRhn_EXM.

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Preparatory drawing for Fog Island, 2012

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Preparatory drawing for Fog Island, 2012

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Untitled, 2011 (drawing for Fog Island)

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Untitled, 2011 (drawing for Fog Island)

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Untitled, 2011 (drawing for Fog Island)

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Untitled, 2011 (drawing for Fog Island)

The Erotic Drawings

Whether creating scathing political posters, writing children’s books about the Holocaust, or penning satirical drawings that cast an uncompromisingly wide net, Ungerer has never been one to concern himself with social and political convention. But if any of his work has elicited public ire, it is above all the erotic drawings he has produced since the late 1960s. In fact, if there is a single factor responsible for the American cultural establishment’s turning against the artist fifty years ago, it is that the beloved children’s book author was also revealed to be an avid practitioner of erotic fare. Ungerer’s erotica is notable for its explicit and unsettling depiction of mostly female subjects. What to make, for example, of the images of a young woman in bondage from Totempole (1976), drawings that are among Ungerer’s most classic and fluid, or the renderings of Hamburg dominatrixes and their fetish objects from Schutzengel der Hölle (Guardian angels of hell) (1986). Whatever our reaction, these drawings are an integral part of Ungerer’s practice, motivated as they are by his deep-rooted belief in giving voice to the misunderstood and repressed. One might even say that these drawings are grounded in an odd kind of humanism. Writing about the Hamburg brothel series, Ungerer describes the dominatrixes as vocational laborers who, in fulfilling their clients’ bizarre fantasies, accept a task no one else is willing to do: “My first line in my book Far Out isn’t Far Enough is ‘what is normal?’…. We have a lot of sick people in the world and we have to acknowledge them. Who does the job?”1 If Ungerer’s protagonists often occupy this misunderstood position, so does his art.

Ungerer, “Interview with Andrew Billen,” Arieté the Arts Tri-Quarterly (Autumn, 2011). http://www.aretemagazine.co.uk/35-autumn-2011/ an-interview-with-tomi-ungerer/.

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Untitled, n.d. (drawing for Fornicon)

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Untitled, n.d. (variation on Fornicon)

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Untitled, n.d. (drawing for Fornicon)

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Untitled, 1969 (drawing for Fornicon)

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Untitled, 1969 (drawing for Fornicon)

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Untitled, 1972 (drawing for Totempole)

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Woman Object, or Geometry of Eroticism, 1972 (drawing for Totempole)

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La petite jupe verte (The little green skirt), 1972 (drawing for Totempole)

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Untitled, 1968â&#x20AC;&#x201C;75 (variation on Totempole)

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Untitled, 1968â&#x20AC;&#x201C;75 (variation on Totempole)

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Untitled (In Bewegung) (In motion), c. 1974 (variation on Totempole)

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Untitled, 1968â&#x20AC;&#x201C;75 (variation on Totempole)

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Untitled, 1970 (drawing for Totempole)

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Untitled, 1968â&#x20AC;&#x201C;75 (drawing for Totempole)

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Droben Stehet die Kapelle schauet tief ins Tal hinein (Rise above, behold the chapel deep in the valley), 1971 (variation on Totempole)

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Untitled, 1973 (variation on Totempole)

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Reisend! (Travel!), 1973 (drawing for Totempole)

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Untitled, 1974 (variation on Totempole)

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Astrid, 1985 [variation on Schutzengel der Hรถlle (Guardian angels of hell)]

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Astrids Stieffeln (Astridâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s boots), 1986 [drawing for Schutzengel der HĂślle (Guardian angels of hell)]

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At Gaby’s, 1985 [variation on Schutzengel der Hölle (Guardian angels of hell)]

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Astrids Gummirock (Astridâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s rubber skirt), 1986 [drawing for Schutzengel der HĂślle (Guardian angels of hell)]

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Tina, 1986 [variation on Schutzengel der Hรถlle (Guardian angels of hell)]

“If I look backwards, my life has been a fairytale with all its monsters.”

Ungerer quoted in Far Out Isn’t Far Enough: The Tomi Ungerer Story, a documentary film directed by Brad Bernstein (2012).

Chronology

1931 Jean-Thomas Ungerer, aka Tomi, is born in Strasbourg, in the Alsace region of France, near the German border. The son of Alice (née Essler) and Theodore, an artist, historian, engineer, and astronomical clock manufacturer, Tomi has an older brother, Bernard, and two sisters, Edith and Geneviève. 1935 Tomi’s father dies. Tomi is three years old. Madame Ungerer and her four children move to Logelbach, near Colmar. 1939–48 In 1940, Alsace is annexed by Germany, and Tomi undergoes Nazi indoctrination at his school in Colmar; French is forbidden. In winter 1944–45, he sees firsthand the battle to liberate the “Colmar pocket”—the last German bridgehead over the Rhine. French teaching is reinstated in schools; however, Alsatian (the French dialect spoken on the Franco-German border) is banned. Tomi spends many hours at the Musée Unterlinden, an ancient cloister converted into a museum, famous for Grünewald’s Isenheim Altarpiece. He later claims, “Grünewald has without a doubt exerted the greatest influence of any painter on my artistic career.” 1950–51 After failing the second part of the Baccalauréat exam (in a school report, his headmaster describes him as a “willfully perverse and subversive individualist”), Tomi decides to hitchhike to the North Cape. In Lapland, he crosses the Russian border. 1952–53 He joins the Méharistes (French camel army corps) in Algeria, but is discharged after falling seriously ill. In October 1953, he attends the Municipal School for Decorative Arts in Strasbourg. He enjoys school but chafes at the proscribed program, and he is kindly asked to leave after one year.

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1954–55 Increasingly interested in the United States, Tomi begins visiting the American Cultural Centre in Strasbourg, where he befriends American Fulbright students and becomes fascinated with artists like James Thurber, Charles Addams, and, in particular, Saul Steinberg. He travels widely across Europe (to Iceland, Norway, Yugoslavia, and Greece), hitchhiking and working on cargo vessels. Between trips, Tomi earns a living as a window dresser and advertising artist for local businesses. 1956 He sets out for New York with sixty dollars in his pocket and what he later describes as a “trunk full of drawings and manuscripts.” 1957 Ungerer meets the children’s book editor Ursula Nordstrom at Harper & Brothers who publishes his first children’s book, The Mellops Go Flying. It is an immediate, award-winning success. He completes his first advertising campaign for Burroughs adding machines and also collaborates with numerous publications such as Esquire, Life, Holiday, Harper’s, Sports Illustrated, the New York Times, and the Village Voice. 1958–62 Tomi completes the Mellops series and publishes many other books for children, including Crictor (1958), Adelaide (1959), Emil (1960), Rufus (1961), and The Three Robbers (1961), which win numerous prizes, as well as satirical books like Der Herzinfarkt (Heart attack) (1962) and The Underground Sketchbook (1964). He begins a longterm collaboration with Daniel Keel of Zurich-based publisher Diogenes Verlag, who has since become his main publisher. 1962 He holds his first major exhibition in Berlin, where he meets Willy Brandt, who would become chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, and novelist Günter Grass. Tomi becomes busily engaged in the Civil Rights movement, publishing numerous posters against segregation and the Vietnam War.

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1966–67 Tomi self-publishes The Party, in which he expresses his aversion to New York elite society, as well as the book of erotic drawings Fornicon. He becomes the food editor for Playboy magazine. 1968 Tomi donates thousands of his children’s book drawings and other materials from 1955–1974 to the Free Library of Philadelphia. 1970–73 Tomi marries Yvonne Wright, who worked for the Children’s Book Council and whom he meets on a subway train. They move to a farm in Nova Scotia, Canada, an experience he later depicts in Heute hier, morgen fort (Here today, gone tomorrow) and Slow Agony (1983). In 1972, Tomi makes drawings for Willy Brandt’s Social Democratic Party and meets advertising executive Robert Pütz, with whom he will collaborate on numerous advertising campaigns. 1975 Ungerer donates a substantial part of his work and toy collection to the Musées de Strasbourg. He produces Das große Liederbuch (The great song book) a large-format collection of lullabies and folk songs, which the New York Times calls his “masterwork” and which sells over one million copies in the German-language market. 1976 Ungerer and his family move permanently to the Republic of Ireland. 1979 Publication of the satirical works Babylon and Politrics, as well as Abracadabra, a collection of advertising work done jointly with Robert Pütz in Germany. 1981 A retrospective exhibition at the Musée des Arts Decoratifs at the Louvre celebrates twenty-five years of Ungerer’s career. The exhibition travels to Munich, Düsseldorf, Hamburg, Dublin, and the Royal Festival Hall in London, where one third of the show is closed

215

down, having met with strong objections by feminists who saw the work as pornographic and misogynist. 1982 Tomi is made a Commander of the French Order of Arts and Letters and is appointed Chargé de Mission by the French Minister of Culture. The Schwarzbuch (Black book), which takes ecology and atomic proliferation as its subject, is awarded the prize for best political book of the year in Germany. 1983 The Goethe Foundation in Basel awards him the Jacob Burckhardt Prize. 1986 Tomi lives for a time in Hamburg, where he publishes a book about the life of professional dominatrixes: Schutzengel der Hölle (Guardian angels of hell). 1987 He is appointed Chargé de Mission by the French Ministry of Education. 1988 Tomi designs the Janus Aqueduct in Strasbourg, a monument celebrating two thousand years of the city’s existence and symbolizing its dual culture. 1990 Ungerer is awarded the Légion d’Honneur in Paris. He creates the Kultur Bank to promote Franco-German cultural exchanges and joins the interministerial board for Franco-German Relations, headed by the minister André Bord. He publishes Amnesty Animal and is made honorary president of the European SPCA. 1991 Publication of A la guerre comme à la guerre (later published in English as Tomi: A Childhood under the Nazis), a memoir of his experiences during World War II under the Nazi occupation.

216

1992–93 The American Biographical Institute lists him as one of “500 World Leaders of Influence.” He takes part in numerous humanitarian operations such as the French Red Cross against AIDS and Amnesty International. 1994 Publication of Poster, a collection of all Ungerer’s advertising work. 1995–96 In France, Ungerer is awarded the National Prize for Graphic Arts by the Ministry of Culture, and a colloquium is devoted to his work at the National Library in France. 1997 Publication of Flix, Tomi’s first children’s book since 1970. 1998–99 Tomi is awarded the Hans Christian Andersen Prize, the most prestigious children’s literature prize, and the European prize for Culture. He designs a kindergarten in the shape of a cat in Wolfartsweier, Germany. 2000 Ungerer is promoted to Officer of the Légion d’Honneur. 2001 Taschen publishes Erotoscope, a large collection of Ungerer’s erotic work, to commemorate his seventieth birthday. 2002 Tomi and Freddie Raphael create the European Centre of Yiddish Culture. 2003 Tomi donates his private collection of over three thousand documents about fascism and its origins to the Bibliothèque Departementale du Bas Rhin. As Ambassador for the Region of Alsace, he is decorated with the Cross of Baden-Württemberg.

217

Tomi is named Ambassador for Childhood and Education by the Council of Europe, and he drafts the Declaration of Children’s Rights. 2004 He is awarded an honorary Doctorate in Philosophy from the University of Karlsruhe. 2007 Tomi donates his personal library of over fifteen hundred volumes to the Musée Tomi Ungerer – Centre International de l’Illustration, which opens the same year. It is the first time in French history that a government-funded museum has been established on behalf of a living artist. With a stock of over eight thousand drawings, the museum changes its exhibition display every four months and is curated by Dr. Thérèse Willer. 2009 The Musée Tomi Ungerer – Centre International de l’Illustration is chosen by the Council of Europe Architectural Commission as one of the top ten museums in Europe. 2010 A major retrospective of Ungerer’s work is exhibited at the Kunsthalle Wurth in Germany, entitled Eclipse: News For Your Eyes From 1960 to 2010. 2011 In celebration of Tomi’s eightieth birthday, The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art in Massachusetts presents a comprehensive show of Ungerer’s children’s book drawings, Tomi Ungerer: Chronicler of the Absurd. Tomi is awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Society of Illustrators in New York City and collaborates with the architectural firm Ayla-Suzan Yöndel for the association Europe without Borders to design a daycare center in the region between BadenWürttemberg, Germany, and Alsace.

218

2012 The Kickstarter-funded documentary by Brad Bernstein, Far Out Isn’t Far Enough: The Tomi Ungerer Story, wins numerous prizes, including Best Documentary at the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival, and is nominated for a Producers Guild of America Award. The film debuts in U.S. theaters in 2013. Premiere of the feature-length animation of Tomi’s 1967 picture book Moon Man (later released in French as Jean de la Lune) at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival. 2013 Fog Island is named one of the Best Illustrated Children’s Books of 2013 by the New York Times and Publisher’s Weekly. 2014 Tomi garners the Prix Sorcières, an annual literary prize awarded in France by the ALSJ (Association des Librairies Spécialisées Jeunesse) and the ABF (Association des Bibliothécaires de France), for works of children’s literature. In September, Ungerer receives one of the highest honors in France, Commandeur de l’Ordre national du Mérite, in recognition of his lifelong efforts to fight prejudice by artistic and political means, and in particular, his work for Franco-German friendship.

219

L I S T O F P L AT E S

PL . 5

Fourth Form Notebook, 1941 PL . 1

Pencil, colored pencil, and ink on notebook page

Peter Sís, Tomi, 2010

8 1/4 x 5 3/4 inches (21.1 x 14.6 cm)

Pen, ink, and watercolor on paper

Collection Musée Tomi Ungerer – Centre

14 x 7 1/2 inches (35.6 x 19.1 cm)

international de l’Illustration, Strasbourg

Courtesy and © the artist

[Not in exhibition]

Photo courtesy Musées de la Ville de Strasbourg

PL . 2

PL . 6

Vive Mikey..., 1938

Untitled, 1944

Pencil, colored pencil, and pen on paper

Ink and watercolor on paper

13 1/4 x 10 1/4 inches (33.7 x 26 cm)

6 x 9 1/16 inches (15 x 23.1 cm)

Collection Musée Tomi Ungerer – Centre

international de l’Illustration, Strasbourg

Photo courtesy Musées de la Ville de Strasbourg

PL . 3

PL . 7

Untitled, 1940

Untitled, 1942

Pencil on verso of printed paper form

Pencil, colored pencil, and ink on paper

6 x 10 5/8 inches (15.2 x 27 cm)

8 3/4 x 6 3/4 inches (22.4 x 17.3 cm)

Collection Musée Tomi Ungerer – Centre

international de l’Illustration, Strasbourg

Photo courtesy Musées de la Ville de Strasbourg

PL . 4

PL . 8

Un Juif (A Jew), 1941

Untitled, 1940–41

Pencil and colored pencil on verso of printed

paper form

3 1/8 x 4 11/16 inches (7.9 x 11.9 cm)

10 3/4 x 8 inches (26.9 x 20.3 cm)

Collection Musée Tomi Ungerer – Centre

international de l’Illustration, Strasbourg

Photo courtesy Musées de la Ville de Strasbourg

220

PL . 9

PL . 13

Untitled, 1944

Untitled, 1945

Pencil, ink, and watercolor on paper

Pencil and ink on paper

8 1/4 x 9 inches (21 x 22.8 cm)

8 1/8 x 11 5/8 inches (20.8 x 29.4 cm)

Collection Musée Tomi Ungerer – Centre

international de l’Illustration, Strasbourg

Photo courtesy Musées de la Ville de

Photo courtesy Musées de la Ville de Strasbourg

Strasbourg/Mathieu Bertola PL . 14 PL . 10

Untitled, c. 1945

Untitled, 1943

Pencil on paper

Pencil, ink, and ink wash on paper

10 5/8 x 8 1/4 inches (27 x 21 cm)

3 1/2 x 10 5/8 inches (8.7 x 27.1 cm)

Collection Musée Tomi Ungerer – Centre

international de l’Illustration, Strasbourg

Photo courtesy Musées de la Ville de Strasbourg

Photo courtesy Musées de la Ville de Strasbourg/Mathieu Bertola

PL . 15

Untitled, 1960 (variation on The Mellops) PL . 11

Ink and colored ink wash on white paper pasted

Deutschland! (Germany!), 1943

on gray paper

Pencil, ink, and watercolor on paper

11 3/4 x 8 3/8 inches (29.7 × 21 cm)

8 3/16 x 6 7/8 inches (20.8 x 17.5 cm)

Collection Musée Tomi Ungerer – Centre

international de l’Illustration, Strasbourg

Photo courtesy Musées de la Ville de

Strasbourg/Martin Bernhart

Strasbourg/Mathieu Bertola

[Not in exhibition]

PL . 12

Mon Journal (My journal), 1943–44 Ink on notebook cover 8 5/8 x 6 5/8 inches (21.9 x 17 cm) Collection Musée Tomi Ungerer – Centre international de l’Illustration, Strasbourg © Tomi Ungerer/Diogenes Verlag AG, Zürich Photo courtesy Musées de la Ville de Strasbourg

221

PL . 16

PL . 19

Untitled, 1960 (variation on The Mellops)

Untitled, 1961 (drawing for The Three Robbers,

Ink and colored ink wash on white paper pasted

first pub. 1961 as Die drei Räuber by Georg

on gray paper

Lentz Verlag, Munich)

11 3/4 x 8 3/8 inches (29.7 × 21 cm)

Ink wash and colored ink wash, felt-tip pen, and

Collection Musée Tomi Ungerer – Centre

white pencil highlights on paper

international de l’Illustration, Strasbourg

11 3/4 x 9 1/4 inches (30 × 23.5 cm)

Collection Musée Tomi Ungerer – Centre

Photo courtesy Musées de la Ville de

international de l’Illustration, Strasbourg

Strasbourg/Martin Bernhart

[Not in exhibition]

Photo courtesy Musées de la Ville de Strasbourg/Martin Bernhart

PL . 17

[Not in exhibition]

Untitled, 1958 (drawing for Emil, first pub. 1960 by Harper & Brothers, New York)

PL . 20

Ink and green ink wash on paper

Untitled, 1961 (drawing for The Three Robbers,

14 x 30 inches (35.6 × 68.5 cm)

first pub. 1961 as Die drei Räuber by Georg

Collection Musée Tomi Ungerer – Centre

Lentz Verlag, Munich)

international de l’Illustration, Strasbourg

Ink wash and colored ink wash, felt-tip pen, and

white pencil highlights on paper

Photo courtesy Musées de la Ville de

13 7/8 x 22 inches (35.2 × 55.8 cm)

Strasbourg/Martin Bernhart

Collection Musée Tomi Ungerer – Centre

[Not in exhibition]

international de l’Illustration, Strasbourg © Tomi Ungerer/Diogenes Verlag AG, Zürich

PL . 18

Photo courtesy Musées de la Ville de

Untitled, 1961 (variation on Rufus, first pub.

Strasbourg/Martin Bernhart

1961 by Harper & Brothers)

[Not in exhibition]

Collage, ink, and colored pencil on blue paper 12 x 9 inches (30.5 × 23.2 cm) Collection Musée Tomi Ungerer – Centre international de l’Illustration, Strasbourg © Tomi Ungerer/Diogenes Verlag AG, Zürich Photo courtesy Musées de la Ville de Strasbourg/Martin Bernhart [Not in exhibition]

222

PL . 21

PL . 24

Untitled, 1966 (drawing for Moon Man, first

Untitled, 1965 (preparatory drawing for The

pub. 1966 as Der Mondmann by Diogenes

New York Times has it!: People who Want Variety

Verlag AG, Zürich)

Read the New York Times)

Ink wash and colored ink wash on paper

Conte on paper

12 7/8 x 20 1/4 inches (32.8 × 51.4 cm)

6 1/8 x 9 inches (15.5 x 23 cm)

Collection Musée Tomi Ungerer – Centre

Tomi Ungerer Collection, Ireland

international de l’Illustration, Strasbourg © Tomi Ungerer/Diogenes Verlag AG, Zürich

PL . 25

Photo courtesy Musées de la Ville de

Untitled, 1965

Strasbourg/Martin Bernhart

Poster for the New York Times

[Not in exhibition]

59 1/2 x 45 inches (151 x 114.3 cm) From the collection of Jack Rennert, New York

PL . 22

The Hat, 1969 (drawing for The Hat, first pub.

Photo courtesy Musées de la Ville de

1970 by Parent’s Magazine Press, New York)

Strasbourg/Mathieu Bertola

Ink and colored ink wash on tracing paper 11 3/4 x 9 inches (29.5 × 23 cm)

PL . 26

Collection Musée Tomi Ungerer – Centre

Untitled, 1968

international de l’Illustration, Strasbourg

Poster for the Village Voice

44 1/2 x 29 1/2 inches (113 x 75 cm)

Photo courtesy Musées de la Ville de Strasbourg

From the collection of Jack Rennert, New York

[Not in exhibition]

PL . 23

Strasbourg/Mathieu Bertola

Untitled, c. 1968 (drawing for The Hat, first pub. 1970 by Parent’s Magazine Press,

PL . 27

New York)

Untitled, 1968 (drawing for the Village Voice

Ink and colored ink wash on tracing paper

poster series “Expect the Unexpected”)

11 7/8 x 9 3/8 inches (30.2 × 24 cm)

Ink, gouache, and watercolor on tracing paper

Collection Musée Tomi Ungerer – Centre

18 3/4 x 13 7/8 inches (47.5 x 35.3 cm)

international de l’Illustration, Strasbourg

Tomi Ungerer Collection, Ireland

223

PL. 28

PL . 33

Untitled, 1967

Untitled, 1962 [variation on Der Herzinfarkt

Poster for Evergreen

(Heart attack), pub. 1962 by Diogenes Verlag

44 2/5 x 29 1/2 inches (113 x 75 cm)

AG, Zürich]

From the collection of Jack Rennert, New York

Ink and ink wash on tracing paper

5 5/16 x 14 inches (13.5 x 35.5 cm)

Photo courtesy Musées de la Ville de

Tomi Ungerer Collection, Ireland

Strasbourg/ Nicolas Füssler PL . 34 PL. 29

Cranking Up (or, Until So We Conk Out), c. 1962

Untitled, 1965

[variation on Der Herzinfarkt (Heart attack),

Poster for Ice Capades

pub. 1962 by Diogenes Verlag AG, Zürich]

59 3/4 x 42 1/2 inches (152 x 108 cm)

Ink on tracing paper

From the collection of Jack Rennert, New York

8 1/2 x 5 inches (21.5 x 13 cm)

[Not in exhibition]

Tomi Ungerer Collection, Ireland

PL . 30

PL . 35

Untitled, 1962 [variation on Der Herzinfarkt

(Heart attack), pub. 1962 by Diogenes Verlag

AG, Zürich]

Ink and Conte on tracing paper

4 3/8 x 6 1/2 inches (11 x 16.5 cm)

5 1/2 x 14 inches (14 x 35.5 cm)

Tomi Ungerer Collection, Ireland

PL . 31

PL . 36

Untitled, c. 1962 [variation on Der Herzinfarkt

Untitled, 1961 (drawing for The Underground

(Heart attack), pub. 1962 by Diogenes Verlag

Sketchbook, first pub. 1964 by Viking, New York)

AG, Zürich]

Ink, pencil, and colored pencil on paper

Ink and colored pencil on tracing paper

12 x 9 inches (30.3 x 22.9 cm)

5 1/2 x 6 3/4 inches (14 x 17 cm)

Collection Musée Tomi Ungerer – Centre

Tomi Ungerer Collection, Ireland

international de l’Illustration, Strasbourg © Tomi Ungerer/Diogenes Verlag AG, Zürich

PL . 32

Photo courtesy Musées de la Ville de

Untitled, 1962 [variation on Der Herzinfarkt

Strasbourg/Mathieu Bertola

(Heart attack), pub. 1962 by Diogenes Verlag AG, Zürich] Ink on tracing paper 5 x 12 inches (13 x 31.5 cm) Tomi Ungerer Collection, Ireland

224

PL . 37

PL . 41

Untitled, c. 1964 (variation on The Underground

Untitled, 1966 (drawing for The Party, first

Sketchbook, first pub. 1964 by Viking, New York)

pub. 1966 by Paragraphic Books, Grossman

Ink on tracing paper

Publishers, New York)

8 7/8 x 11 13/16 inches (22.5 x 30 cm)

Ink on paper

Tomi Ungerer Collection, Ireland

8 1/2 x 11 inches (21.5 x 28 cm) Tomi Ungerer Collection, Ireland

PL . 38

Untitled, c. 1964 (variation on The Underground Sketchbook, first pub. 1964 by Viking, New York)

PL . 42

Ink, ink wash, and colored pencil on tracing

Choice Not Chance, 1967

paper

Self-published poster

8 7/8 x 11 13/16 inches (22.5 x 30 cm)

21 x 26 5/8 inches (53.3 x 67.6 cm)

Tomi Ungerer Collection, Ireland

From the collection of Jack Rennert, New York © Tomi Ungerer/Diogenes Verlag AG, Zürich

PL . 39

Photo courtesy Musées de la Ville de

Untitled, c. 1964 (variation on The Underground

Strasbourg/Mathieu Bertola

Sketchbook, first pub. 1964 by Viking, New York) Ink, ink wash, and colored pencil on tracing

PL . 43

paper

Eat, 1967

11 1/16 x 8 5/8 inches (28 x 22 cm)

Self-published poster

Tomi Ungerer Collection, Ireland

21 x 26 1/2 inches (43.5 x 67.2 cm) From the collection of Jack Rennert, New York

PL . 40

Untitled, 1966 (drawing for The Party, first

Photo courtesy Musées de la Ville de

pub. 1966 by Paragraphic Books, Grossman

Strasbourg/Mathieu Bertola

Publishers, New York) Ink and ink wash on paper

PL . 44

18 x 18 inches (45.8 x 45.8 cm)

Give, 1967 (preparatory drawing for self-

Collection Musée Tomi Ungerer – Centre

published poster)

international de l’Illustration, Strasbourg

Ink on paper

12 x 9 inches (30.5 x 23 cm)

Photo courtesy Musées de la Ville de

Tomi Ungerer Collection, Ireland

Strasbourg/Mathieu Bertola

225

PL . 45

PL . 48

Give, 1967

“Church Bus/I Fixed it Up with Jesus a Long Long

Self-published poster

Time Ago,” 1971–83 (drawing for Slow Agony,

20 7/8 x 27 1/8 inches (53.2 x 68.8 cm)

pub. 1983 by Diogenes Verlag AG, Zürich)

From the collection of Jack Rennert, New York

Black grease pencil, colored ink wash, and white

gouache on paper

Photo courtesy Musées de la Ville de

23 5/8 x 34 5/8 inches (60 x 88 cm)

Strasbourg/Mathieu Bertola

Collection Musée Tomi Ungerer – Centre international de l’Illustration, Strasbourg

PL . 46

Black Power/White Power, 1967

Photo courtesy Musées de la Ville de

Poster

Strasbourg/Mathieu Bertola

27 15/16 x 19 11/16 inches (71 x 50 cm) From the collection of Jack Rennert, New York

PL . 49

Power Line, 1971–83 (variation on Slow Agony,

Photo courtesy Musées de la Ville de

pub. 1983 by Diogenes Verlag AG, Zürich)

Strasbourg/Mathieu Bertola

Black grease pencil, black ink, and colored ink wash on paper

PL . 47

23 5/8 x 34 5/8 inches (60 x 88 cm)

No Parking Please, 1971–83 (variation on Slow

Collection Musée Tomi Ungerer – Centre

Agony, pub. 1983 by Diogenes Verlag AG,

international de l’Illustration, Strasbourg

Zürich)

Photo courtesy Musées de la Ville de

Black grease pencil, black ink, and colored ink

Strasbourg/Mathieu Bertola

wash on paper 23 5/8 x 35 inches (60 x 89 cm)

PL . 50

Collection Musée Tomi Ungerer – Centre

Untitled, 1971–83 (variation on Slow Agony,

international de l’Illustration, Strasbourg

pub. 1983 by Diogenes Verlag AG, Zürich)

Photo courtesy Musées de la Ville de

Black grease pencil, black ink, colored ink wash,

Strasbourg/Mathieu Bertola

and gouache on paper 23 3/4 x 35 3/4 inches (60.5 x 90.9 cm) Collection Musée Tomi Ungerer – Centre international de l’Illustration, Strasbourg Photo courtesy Musées de la Ville de Strasbourg/Mathieu Bertola

226

PL . 51

PL . 54

Untitled (Wisdom has Built her House she has Set

Untitled, 1971–76 [variation on Heute hier,

Seven Pillars; Wisdom hath Built her House, she

morgen fort (Here today, gone tomorrow) first

hath Hewn Out her Seven Pillars, Proverbs 9-1),

pub. 1983 by Diogenes Verlag AG, Zürich]

1971–83 (drawing for Slow Agony, pub. 1983 by

Sepia, black ink, and colored ink wash on paper

Diogenes Verlag AG, Zürich)

8 1/4 x 11 3/4 inches (21 x 29.6 cm)

Black grease pencil and colored ink wash on

Collection Musée Tomi Ungerer – Centre

paper

international de l’Illustration, Strasbourg

23 3/4 x 35 7/8 inches (60.5 x 91 cm)

Photo courtesy Musées de la Ville de

Collection Musée Tomi Ungerer – Centre

Strasbourg/Mathieu Bertola

international de l’Illustration, Strasbourg © Tomi Ungerer/Diogenes Verlag AG, Zürich

PL . 55

Photo courtesy Musées de la Ville de

Untitled, 1973 [variation on Heute hier, morgen

Strasbourg/Mathieu Bertola

fort (Here today, gone tomorrow), first pub. 1983 by Diogenes Verlag AG, Zürich]

PL . 52

Ink, ink wash, and colored pencil on tracing

Untitled (Yvonne Feeding Tiger), 1973 [variation

paper

on Heute hier, morgen fort (Here today, gone

11 x 14 inches (27.3 x 35 cm)

tomorrow), first pub. 1983 by Diogenes Verlag

Tomi Ungerer Collection, Ireland

AG, Zürich] Ink and ink wash on tracing paper

PL . 56

10 7/8 x 9 5/8 inches (27.5 x 24.5 cm)

Untitled, 1974 [variation on Heute hier, morgen

Tomi Ungerer Collection, Ireland

fort (Here today, gone tomorrow), first pub. 1983 by Diogenes Verlag AG, Zürich]

PL . 53

Conte on paper

Untitled, 1973 [variation on Heute hier, morgen

10 5/8 x 11 1/2 inches (27 x 29 cm)

fort (Here today, gone tomorrow), first pub.

Tomi Ungerer Collection, Ireland

1983 by Diogenes Verlag AG, Zürich] Gouache, ink, and ink wash on tracing paper

PL . 57

14 x 9 1/2 inches (34.8 x 24 cm)

Untitled, 1973 [variation on Heute hier, morgen

Tomi Ungerer Collection, Ireland

fort (Here today, gone tomorrow), first pub. 1983 by Diogenes Verlag AG, Zürich] Ink and watercolor on tracing paper 8 5/8 x 11 inches (22 x 28 cm) Tomi Ungerer Collection, Ireland

227

PL . 58

PL . 62

Et Tu Brutus? (Sasha), 1973–74 [variation

Untitled, 1975 [drawing for the song “O

on Heute hier, morgen fort (Here today, gone

Tannenbaum” (O Christmas tree) in Das große

tomorrow), first pub. 1983 by Diogenes Verlag

Liederbuch (The great song book), first pub.

AG, Zürich]

1975 by Diogenes Verlag AG, Zürich]

Ink and ink wash on paper

Colored ink wash and colored pencil on tracing

5 1/2 x 3 15/16 inches (14 x 10 cm)

paper

Tomi Ungerer Collection, Ireland

14 x 11 inches (35.5 x 28 cm) Collection Musée Tomi Ungerer – Centre

PL . 59

international de l’Illustration, Strasbourg

Untitled (Muskrat), 1974 [variation on Heute

hier, morgen fort (Here today, gone tomorrow),

Photo courtesy Musées de la Ville de

first pub. 1983 by Diogenes Verlag AG, Zürich]

Strasbourg/Martin Bernhart

Ink, ink wash, and pencil on tracing paper 5 1/8 x 6 7/8 inches (13 x 17.5 cm)

PL . 63

Tomi Ungerer Collection, Ireland

Untitled, 1975 [drawing for the song “Muß i denn, muß i denn, zum Städtele ’naus” (The girl

PL . 60

I left behind me) in Das große Liederbuch (The

Untitled (Yvonne Reading to Aria), 1978

great song book), first pub. 1975 by Diogenes

Ink and pencil on paper

Verlag AG, Zürich]

8 1/8 x 11 13/16 inches (21 x 30 cm)

Black ink and colored ink wash on tracing

Tomi Ungerer Collection, Ireland

paper 14 x 11 inches (35.5 x 28 cm)

PL . 61

Collection Musée Tomi Ungerer – Centre

Untitled (Aria Washing Dishes), 1979

international de l’Illustration, Strasbourg

Ink on paper

8 1/8 x 11 13/16 inches (21 x 30 cm)

Photo courtesy Musées de la Ville de Strasbourg

Tomi Ungerer Collection, Ireland PL . 64

Untitled, 1974 [variation on the song “Nun ade, du mein lieb’ Heimatland” (Farewell, oh my dear fatherland) in Das große Liederbuch (The great song book), first pub. 1975 by Diogenes Verlag AG, Zürich] Ink and watercolor on tracing paper 11 x 14 inches (28 x 35.5 cm) Tomi Ungerer Collection, Ireland

228

PL . 65

PL . 68

Untitled, n.d. [drawing for the song “Allelujah”

Untitled, 1974 [variation on the song “Ich hatt’

in Das große Liederbuch (The great song book),

einen Kameraden” (I had a comrade) in Das

first pub. 1975 by Diogenes Verlag AG, Zürich]

große Liederbuch (The great song book), first

Ink, gouache, and watercolor on tracing paper

pub. 1975 by Diogenes Verlag AG, Zürich]

10 5/8 x 8 3/8 inches (27 x 22 cm)

Ink, gouache, and watercolor on tracing paper

Tomi Ungerer Collection, Ireland

14 x 11 inches (35.5 x 28 cm)

Tomi Ungerer Collection, Ireland

PL . 66

PL . 69

Untitled (Strasbourg 1871), 1975 [variation on

Untitled, n.d. [preparatory drawing for “Muß i

the song “Ich hatt’ einen Kameraden” (I had

denn, muß i denn, zum Städtele ’naus” (The girl

a comrade) in Das große Liederbuch (The great

I left behind me) in Das große Liederbuch (The

song book), first pub. 1975 by Diogenes Verlag

great song book), first pub. 1975 by Diogenes

AG, Zürich]

Verlag AG, Zürich]

Sepia ink, colored ink wash, and grease pencil

Conte on tracing paper

on tracing paper

14 x 11 inches (35.5 x 28 cm)

Tomi Ungerer Collection, Ireland

Collection Musée Tomi Ungerer – Centre international de l’Illustration, Strasbourg

PL . 70

Photo courtesy Musées de la Ville de Strasbourg

Untitled, n.d. [preparatory drawing for “Muß i denn, muß i denn, zum Städtele ’naus” (The girl

PL . 67

I left behind me) in Das große Liederbuch (The

Untitled, 1975 [variation on the song “Ich hatt’

great song book), first pub. 1975 by Diogenes

einen Kameraden” (I had a comrade) in Das

Verlag AG, Zürich]

große Liederbuch (The great song book), first

Conte on tracing paper

pub. 1975 by Diogenes Verlag AG, Zürich]

9 3/8 x 8 inches (25.5 x 20.5 cm)

Sepia ink and colored ink wash on tracing paper

Tomi Ungerer Collection, Ireland

14 x 11 inches (35.5 x 28 cm) Collection Musée Tomi Ungerer – Centre

PL . 71

international de l’Illustration, Strasbourg

Untitled, n.d. [preparatory drawing for the song

Photo courtesy Musées de la Ville de Strasbourg

“Ich hatt’ einen Kameraden” (I had a comrade) in Das große Liederbuch (The great song book), first pub. 1975 by Diogenes Verlag AG, Zürich] Ink on tracing paper 11 x 11 3/8 inches (28 x 29 cm) Tomi Ungerer Collection, Ireland

229

PL . 72

PL . 75

Untitled, n.d. [preparatory drawing for “Ein

Regenbogen Bogen (Rainbow bow), 1975

Jäger aus Kurpfalz” (A hunter from Kurpfalz)

(drawing for Regenbogen Siegwerk Farben

in Das große Liederbuch (The great song book),

printing inks)

first pub. 1975 by Diogenes Verlag AG, Zürich]

Colored ink wash and colored pencil on tracing

Ink on tracing paper

paper

14 x 11 1/8 inches (35.5 x 28.5 cm)

13 x 10 1/4 inches (33 x 26 cm)

Tomi Ungerer Collection, Ireland

Collection Musée Tomi Ungerer – Centre international de l’Illustration, Strasbourg

PL . 73

Photo courtesy Musées de la Ville de Strasbourg

Untitled, 1975 (drawing for Regenbogen Siegwerk Farben printing inks)

PL . 76

Colored ink wash and colored pencil on tracing

Untitled, 1975 (drawing for Regenbogen

paper

Siegwerk Farben printing inks)

13 1/4 x 10 3/4 inches (33.9 x 27.2 cm)

Ink and sepia wash and colored pencil on

Collection Musée Tomi Ungerer – Centre

tracing paper

international de l’Illustration, Strasbourg

13 7/8 x 11 1/16 inches (35.3 x 28.1 cm)

Photo courtesy Musées de la Ville de Strasbourg

Collection Musée Tomi Ungerer – Centre international de l’Illustration, Strasbourg

PL . 74

Photo courtesy Musées de la Ville de Strasbourg

Untitled, 1975 (drawing for Regenbogen Siegwerk Farben printing inks)

PL . 77

Ink and sepia wash and colored pencil,

Untitled, c. 1976

heightened with white gouache on tracing paper

Poster for Bonduelle canned peas

12 x 26 1/2 inches (30.3 x 26.5 cm)

32 11/16 x 23 1/4 inches (83 x 59 cm)

Collection Musée Tomi Ungerer – Centre

Tomi Ungerer Collection, Ireland

international de l’Illustration, Strasbourg

Photo courtesy Musées de la Ville de

Photo courtesy Musées de la Ville de Strasbourg

Strasbourg/Mathieu Bertola

[Not in exhibition] PL . 78

Untitled, c. 1976 (preparatory drawing for Bonduelle canned peas) Ink and Conte on graph paper 11 5/8 x 8 3/8 inches (29.5 x 21 cm) Tomi Ungerer Collection, Ireland © Tomi Ungerer

230

PL . 79

PL . 82

Untitled, c. 1976 (preparatory drawing for

Waiting for Something to Happen (But What?),

Bonduelle canned peas)

1977–79 (drawing for Babylon, first pub. 1979

Ink, Conte, and collage on graph paper

by Diogenes Verlag AG, Zürich)

11 13/16 x 8 3/8 inches (30 x 21 cm)

Black grease pencil on paper

Tomi Ungerer Collection, Ireland

11 x 8 1/2 inches (28 x 21.5 cm) Collection Musée Tomi Ungerer – Centre

PL . 80

international de l’Illustration, Strasbourg

Untitled (We Want Mothers), 1977–79 (drawing

for Babylon, first pub. 1979 by Diogenes Verlag

Photo courtesy Musées de la Ville de

AG, Zürich)

Strasbourg/Mathieu Bertola

Black grease pencil on paper 15 3/4 x 11 3/4 inches (40 x 30 cm)

PL . 83

Collection Musée Tomi Ungerer – Centre

Hurried, 1982 (variation on Symptomatics, pub.

international de l’Illustration, Strasbourg

1982 by Diogenes Verlag AG, Zürich)

Ink and ink wash on tracing paper

Photo courtesy Musées de la Ville de

11 5/8 x 8 3/8 inches (29.5 x 21 cm)

Strasbourg/Mathieu Bertola

Tomi Ungerer Collection, Ireland

PL . 81

PL . 84

Untitled, 1977–79 (drawing for Babylon, first

Untitled, 1972–82 (variation on Symptomatics,

pub. 1979 by Diogenes Verlag AG, Zürich)

pub. 1982 by Diogenes Verlag AG, Zürich)

Black grease pencil on paper

Conte, ink, and colored ink wash on paper

15 3/4 x 11 3/4 inches (40 x 30 cm)

12 x 8 inches (29.7 x 20.3 cm)

Collection Musée Tomi Ungerer – Centre

Tomi Ungerer Collection, Ireland

international de l’Illustration, Strasbourg © Tomi Ungerer/Diogenes Verlag AG, Zürich

PL . 85

Photo courtesy Musées de la Ville de

Untitled, 1982 (drawing for Symptomatics, pub.

Strasbourg/Mathieu Bertola

1982 by Diogenes Verlag AG, Zürich) Ink and colored ink wash on tracing paper 8 x 12 inches (20.3 x 29.7 cm) Tomi Ungerer Collection, Ireland © Tomi Ungerer/Diogenes Verlag AG, Zürich

231

PL . 86

PL . 90

Untitled, 1982 (variation on Symptomatics, pub.

Der Unterrichter (The teacher), c. 1980 (drawing

1982 by Diogenes Verlag AG, Zürich)

for Rigor Mortis, pub. 1983 by Diogenes Verlag

Colored pencil, ink, and colored ink wash on

AG, Zürich)

tracing paper

Ink wash on tracing paper

12 x 9 inches (30.5 x 22.5 cm)

19 3/4 x 15 3/4 inches (50 x 40 cm)

Tomi Ungerer Collection, Ireland

Collection Musée Tomi Ungerer – Centre international de l’Illustration, Strasbourg

PL . 87

Untitled, 1982 (variation on Symptomatics, pub.

Photo courtesy Musées de la Ville de

1982 by Diogenes Verlag AG, Zürich)

Strasbourg/Mathieu Bertola

Ink and colored ink wash on tracing paper 12 x 8 inches (29.7 x 20.3 cm)

PL . 91

Tomi Ungerer Collection, Ireland

Schwips! (Drunk!), c. 1980 (variation on Rigor Mortis, pub. 1983 by Diogenes Verlag AG,

PL . 88

Zürich)

Fear of Feelings, 1982 (drawing for Symptomatics,

Ink on tracing paper

pub. 1982 by Diogenes Verlag AG, Zürich)

13 x 18 7/8 inches (33 x 48 cm)

Conte, ink, and colored ink wash on paper

Collection Musée Tomi Ungerer – Centre

10 x 8 inches (25.4 x 20.3 cm)

international de l’Illustration, Strasbourg

Tomi Ungerer Collection, Ireland

Photo courtesy Musées de la Ville de

Strasbourg/Mathieu Bertola

PL . 89

PL . 92

Untitled, 1982 (drawing for Symptomatics, pub.

Untitled (After the Bombing), c. 1980 (variation

1982 by Diogenes Verlag AG, Zürich)

on Rigor Mortis, pub. 1983 by Diogenes Verlag

Ink and ink wash on paper

AG, Zürich)

12 2/5 x 9 inches (31 x 23 cm)

Ink wash on tracing paper

Tomi Ungerer Collection, Ireland

10 15/16 x 13 15/16 inches (27.7 x 35.4 cm)

Collection Musée Tomi Ungerer – Centre international de l’Illustration, Strasbourg Photo courtesy Musées de la Ville de Strasbourg/Martin Bernhart

232

PL . 93

PL . 96

Pas de liberté de la presse (No freedom without

Untitled, 1999 (drawing for Otto: The

freedom of the press), 1992

Autobiography of a Teddy Bear, first pub. 1999 by

Poster for Reporters without Borders

Diogenes Verlag AG, Zürich)

31 1/2 x 23 5/8 inches (80 x 60 cm)

Pencil and colored ink wash on paper

Tomi Ungerer Collection, Ireland

12 x 8 inches (30.5 x 20.3 cm)

Collection Musée Tomi Ungerer – Centre

Photo courtesy Musées de la Ville de

international de l’Illustration, Strasbourg

Strasbourg/Mathieu Bertola

PL . 94

Pig Heil!, 1994

PL . 97

Self-published poster

Untitled, 1999 (drawing for Otto: The

33 1/8 x 23 3/8 inches (84 x 59.5 cm)

Autobiography of a Teddy Bear, first pub. 1999 by

Tomi Ungerer Collection, Ireland

Diogenes Verlag AG, Zürich)

Pencil and colored ink wash on paper

Photo courtesy Musées de la Ville de

12 x 8 inches (30.5 x 20.3 cm)

Strasbourg/Mathieu Bertola

Collection Musée Tomi Ungerer – Centre international de l’Illustration, Strasbourg

PL . 95

Untitled, 1999 (drawing for Otto: The

Photo courtesy Musées de la Ville de Strasbourg

Autobiography of a Teddy Bear, first pub. 1999 by Diogenes Verlag AG, Zürich)

PL . 98

Pencil, colored ink wash, and white pencil

Untitled, 1999 (drawing for Otto: The

highlights on paper

Autobiography of a Teddy Bear, first pub. 1999 by

11 3/4 x 8 1/4 inches (29.7 x 21 cm)

Diogenes Verlag AG, Zürich)

Collection Musée Tomi Ungerer – Centre

Pencil and colored ink wash on paper

international de l’Illustration, Strasbourg

12 x 8 inches (30.5 x 20.3 cm)

Collection Musée Tomi Ungerer – Centre

Photo courtesy Musées de la Ville de

international de l’Illustration, Strasbourg

Strasbourg/Mathieu Bertola

233

PL . 99

PL . 103

Untitled, 1999 (drawing for Otto: The

Untitled, 2011 (drawing for Fog Island, first pub.

Autobiography of a Teddy Bear, first pub. 1999 by

2012 as Der Nebelmann by Diogenes Verlag AG,

Diogenes Verlag AG, Zürich)

Zürich)

Pencil and colored ink wash on paper

Pastel and black ink on tracing paper

12 x 16 inches (30.5 x 40.6 cm)

16 1/2 x 11 3/4 inches (42 x 29.7 cm)

Collection Musée Tomi Ungerer – Centre

Tomi Ungerer Collection, on loan to the Tomi

international de l’Illustration, Strasbourg

Ungerer Museum, Strasbourg

Photo courtesy Musées de la Ville de

Strasbourg/Mathieu Bertola

PL . 100

PL . 104

Preparatory drawing for Fog Island, 2012 (first

Untitled, 2011 (drawing for Fog Island, first pub.

pub. 2012 as Der Nebelmann by Diogenes Verlag

2012 as Der Nebelmann by Diogenes Verlag AG,

AG, Zürich)

Zürich)

Pencil on paper, pencil, and photocopy on

Pastel, black ink, and colored ink on tracing

tracing paper

paper

13 x 9 1/2 inches (33 x 24 cm)

16 1/2 x 11 3/4 inches (42 x 29.7 cm)

Tomi Ungerer Collection, Ireland

Tomi Ungerer Collection, on loan to the Tomi Ungerer Museum, Strasbourg

PL . 101

Preparatory drawing for Fog Island, 2012 (first

Photo courtesy Musées de la Ville de

pub. 2012 as Der Nebelmann by Diogenes Verlag

Strasbourg/Mathieu Bertola

AG, Zürich) Ink, pencil, pastel, and collage on tracing paper

PL . 105

11 13/16 x 16 9/16 inches (30 x 42 cm)

Untitled, 2011 (drawing for Fog Island, first pub.

Tomi Ungerer Collection, Ireland

2012 as Der Nebelmann by Diogenes Verlag AG, Zürich)

PL . 102

Pastel, black ink, and collage on black paper

Untitled, 2011 (drawing for Fog Island, first pub.

16 5/8 x 10 3/8 inches (42.2 x 27.4 cm)

2012 as Der Nebelmann by Diogenes Verlag AG,

Tomi Ungerer Collection, on loan to the Tomi

Zürich)

Ungerer Museum, Strasbourg

Pastel, black ink, and collage on paper

16 1/2 x 10 3/4 inches (42.2 x 27.4 cm)

Photo courtesy Musées de la Ville de

Tomi Ungerer Collection, on loan to the Tomi

Strasbourg/Mathieu Bertola

234

PL . 106

PL . 110

Untitled, n.d. (drawing for Fornicon, first pub.

Untitled, 1969 (drawing for Fornicon, first pub.

1969 by Rhinoceros, New York)

Ink wash on tracing paper

Ink on tracing paper

14 x 11 inches (35.5 x 28 cm)

Tomi Ungerer Collection, Ireland

Collection Musée Tomi Ungerer – Centre

PL . 107

Photo courtesy Musées de la Ville de Strasbourg

Untitled, n.d. (variation on Fornicon, first pub. 1969 by Rhinoceros, New York)

PL . 111

Ink on tracing paper

Untitled, 1972 (drawing for Totempole, pub.

14 x 11 inches (35.5 x 28 cm)

1976 by Diogenes Verlag AG, Zürich)

Tomi Ungerer Collection, Ireland

Black grease pencil on paper 30 x 24 3/4 inches (76.3 x 62.7 cm)

PL . 108

Collection Musée Tomi Ungerer – Centre

Untitled, n.d. (drawing for Fornicon, first pub.

international de l’Illustration, Strasbourg

1969 by Rhinoceros, New York)

Ink on tracing paper

Photo courtesy Musées de la Ville de

14 x 17 inches (35.5 x 43 cm)

Strasbourg/Mathieu Bertola

PL . 112

Woman Object, or Geometry of Eroticism, 1972 PL . 109

(drawing for Totempole, pub. 1976 by Diogenes

Untitled, 1969 (drawing for Fornicon, first pub.

Verlag AG, Zürich)

1969 by Rhinoceros, New York)

Black grease pencil on paper

Ink on tracing paper

36 x 24 inches (91.4 x 61.5 cm)

10 1/2 x 13 1/2 inches (26.6 x 34.4 cm)

Collection Musée Tomi Ungerer – Centre

international de l’Illustration, Strasbourg

Photo courtesy Musées de la Ville de

Photo courtesy Musées de la Ville de Strasbourg

Strasbourg/Mathieu Bertola

235

PL . 113

PL . 117

La petite jupe verte (The little green skirt), 1972

Untitled, 1968–75 (variation on Totempole, pub.

(drawing for Totempole, pub. 1976 by Diogenes

1976 by Diogenes Verlag AG, Zürich)

Verlag AG, Zürich)

Pencil on tracing paper

Black grease pencil, colored pencil, and colored

14 x 11 inches (35.5 x 28 cm)

ink wash on paper

Collection Musée Tomi Ungerer – Centre

27 1/2 x 39 3/8 inches (70 x 100 cm)

international de l’Illustration, Strasbourg

Collection Musée Tomi Ungerer – Centre

Photo courtesy Musées de la Ville de

international de l’Illustration, Strasbourg

Strasbourg/Mathieu Bertola

PL . 118

Strasbourg/Mathieu Bertola

Untitled, 1970 (drawing for Totempole, pub. 1976 by Diogenes Verlag AG, Zürich)

PL . 114

Black grease crayon on tracing paper

Untitled, 1968–75 (variation on Totempole, pub.

14 x 11 inches (35.5 x 28 cm)

1976 by Diogenes Verlag AG, Zürich)

Conte and wax crayon on paper

Collection Musée Tomi Ungerer - Centre

19 5/8 x 16 inches (49.7 x 40.6 cm)

international de l’Illustration, Strasbourg

Tomi Ungerer Collection, Ireland

Photo courtesy Musées de la Ville de Strasbourg

PL . 115

PL . 119

Untitled, 1968–75 (variation on Totempole, pub.

Untitled, 1968–75 (drawing for Totempole, pub.

1976 by Diogenes Verlag AG, Zürich)

Conte on tracing paper

Black grease crayon on tracing paper

14 x 11 1/4 inches (35.5 x 28.5 cm)

14 x 11 inches (35.5 x 28 cm)

Tomi Ungerer Collection, Ireland

PL . 116

international de l’Illustration, Strasbourg

Untitled (In Bewegung) (In motion), c. 1974

Photo courtesy Musées de la Ville de

(variation on Totempole, pub. 1976 by Diogenes

Strasbourg/Mathieu Bertola

Verlag AG, Zürich) Pencil on tracing paper

PL . 120

11 1/16 x 14 inches (28 x 35.5 cm)

Droben Stehet die Kapelle schauet tief ins Tal

Tomi Ungerer Collection, Ireland

hinein (Rise above, behold the chapel deep in the valley), 1971 (variation on Totempole, pub. 1976 by Diogenes Verlag AG, Zürich) Pencil on tracing paper 16 9/16 x 11 13/16 inches (42 x 30 cm) Tomi Ungerer Collection, Ireland

236

PL . 121

PL . 125

Untitled, 1973 (variation on Totempole, pub.

Astrids Stieffeln (Astrid’s boots), 1986 [drawing

1976 by Diogenes Verlag AG, Zürich)

for Schutzengel der Hölle (Guardian angels

Black grease crayon on tracing paper

of hell), pub. 1986 by Diogenes Verlag AG,

27 1/8 x 22 5/8 inches (69 x 57.6 cm)

Zürich]

Grease crayon on paper

Collection Musée Tomi Ungerer – Centre

11 x 14 inches (28 x 35.5 cm)

international de l’Illustration, Strasbourg

Photo courtesy Musées de la Ville de

Collection Musée Tomi Ungerer - Centre

Strasbourg/Mathieu Bertola

international de l’Illustration, Strasbourg Photo courtesy Musées de la Ville de Strasbourg

PL . 122

Reisend! (Travel!), 1973 (drawing for Totempole,

PL . 126

pub. 1976 by Diogenes Verlag AG, Zürich)

At Gaby’s, 1985 [variation on Schutzengel der

Black crayon and colored pencil on tracing

Hölle (Guardian angels of hell), pub. 1986 by

paper

Diogenes Verlag AG, Zürich]

14 x 11 inches (35.5 x 28 cm)

Crayon on paper

Collection Musée Tomi Ungerer – Centre

11 5/8 x 17 5/8 inches (29.5 x 44.9 cm)

international de l’Illustration, Strasbourg

Collection Musée Tomi Ungerer - Centre

international de l’Illustration, Strasbourg

Photo courtesy Musées de la Ville de Strasbourg

PL . 123

PL . 127

Untitled, 1974 (variation on Totempole, pub.

Astrids Gummirock (Astrid’s rubber skirt), 1986

1976 by Diogenes Verlag AG, Zürich)

[drawing for Schutzengel der Hölle (Guardian

Conte on tracing paper

angels of hell), pub. 1986 by Diogenes Verlag

16 15/16 x 14 inches (43 x 35.5 cm)

AG, Zürich]

Tomi Ungerer Collection, Ireland

Grease crayon on paper 11 x 14 inches (28 x 35.5 cm)

PL . 124

Astrid, 1985 [variation on Schutzengel der

Collection Musée Tomi Ungerer - Centre

Hölle (Guardian angels of hell), pub. 1986 by

international de l’Illustration, Strasbourg

Diogenes Verlag AG, Zürich]

Photo courtesy Musées de la Ville de Strasbourg

Black grease crayon on paper 16 1/2 x 11 3/4 inches (41.8 x 29.7 cm) Collection Musée Tomi Ungerer - Centre international de l’Illustration, Strasbourg Photo courtesy Musées de la Ville de Strasbourg

237

PL . 128

E XHIBITION WORKS NOT PICTURED

Tina, 1986 [variation on Schutzengel der Hölle (Guardian angels of hell), pub. 1986 by

Tenth Form Recitation Book, 1938

Diogenes Verlag AG, Zürich]

Ink, pencil, and colored pencil on graph paper,

Grease pencil, graphite, and white pencil on

in notebook with purple cover

tracing paper

8 x 7 inches (22.5 x 17.5 cm)

11 x 14 inches (28 x 35.5 cm)

Collection Musée Tomi Ungerer – Centre

Collection Musée Tomi Ungerer - Centre

international de l’Illustration, Strasbourg

Photo courtesy Musées de la Ville de Strasbourg

Photo courtesy Musées de la Ville de Strasbourg Untitled, 1944

Crayon and colored pencil on paper

otherwise

8 1/4 x 11 3/4 inches (21 x 29.6 cm) Collection Musée Tomi Ungerer – Centre international de l’Illustration, Strasbourg © Tomi Ungerer/Diogenes Verlag AG, Zürich Photo courtesy Musées de la Ville de Strasbourg Untitled, 1965 (preparatory drawing for The New York Times Remembers: Remember the New York Times) Conte on paper 6 1/8 x 9 inches (15.5 x 23 cm) Tomi Ungerer Collection, Ireland Untitled, 1965 (preparatory drawing for The New York Times Remembers: New York Times Knows What’s Coming) Conte on paper 6 1/8 x 9 inches (15.5 x 23 cm) Tomi Ungerer Collection, Ireland Untitled, 1965 (preparatory drawing for The New York Times Remembers: People Who Remember) Conte on paper 6 1/8 x 9 inches (15.5 x 23 cm) Tomi Ungerer Collection, Ireland

238

Untitled, 1965 (preparatory drawing for The

Mallard, with his Sergeant Stripes Always on Leave

New York Times Remembers: People with Assets)

and Never on Duty, 1973 [variation on Heute

Conte on paper

hier, morgen fort (Here today, gone tomorrow)

6 1/8 x 9 inches (15.5 x 23 cm)

first pub. 1983 by Diogenes Verlag AG, Zürich]

Tomi Ungerer Collection, Ireland

Ink on tracing paper 11 13/16 x 8 1/8 inches (30 x 21 cm)

Untitled, 1965 (preparatory drawing for The

Tomi Ungerer Collection, Ireland

New York Times Remembers: People with KnowHow)

Untitled, 1973 [variation on Heute hier, morgen

Conte on paper

fort (Here today, gone tomorrow) first pub. 1983

6 1/8 x 9 inches (15.5 x 23 cm)

by Diogenes Verlag AG, Zürich]

Tomi Ungerer Collection, Ireland

Ink and watercolor on tracing paper 9 1/4 x 13 3/8 inches (23.5 x 35 cm)

Untitled, 1961 (drawing for The Underground

Tomi Ungerer Collection, Ireland

Sketchbook, first pub. 1964 by Viking, New York) Ink and ink wash on tracing paper

Untitled (Muskrat), 1974 [variation on Heute

7 1/8 x 8 5/8 inches (18 x 22 cm)

hier, morgen fort (Here today, gone tomorrow)

Tomi Ungerer Collection, Ireland

first pub. 1983 by Diogenes Verlag AG, Zürich]

Ink on tracing paper 10 1/2 x 8 3/8 inches (26.6 x 22 cm)

Untitled, 1966 (variation on The Party, first

Tomi Ungerer Collection, Ireland

pub. 1966 by Paragraphic Books, Grossman Publishers, New York)

Struggling with the Elements, 1981

Ink on paper

Pencil on paper

24 1/4 x 18 1/8 inches (61.5 x 46 cm)

8 1/8 x 11 13/16 inches (20.6 x 30 cm)

Tomi Ungerer Collection, Ireland

Wie eine riesige spottige Kartoffel (If they were

Untitled (Pascal Learning to Ride his Bike), 1982

potatoes I wouldn’t mind), 1971–75 [drawing

Ink and watercolor on paper

for Heute hier, morgen fort (Here today, gone

11 13/16 x 8 1/8 inches (30 x 21 cm)

tomorrow) first pub. 1983 by Diogenes Verlag

Tomi Ungerer Collection, Ireland

AG, Zürich] Ink and watercolor on tracing paper

Untitled (Pascal Shooting Toy Gun), 1983

9 x 13 3/4 inches (23 x 35 cm)

Pencil on paper

Tomi Ungerer Collection, Ireland

11 13/16 x 8 1/2 inches (30 x 21.5 cm)

Tomi Ungerer Collection, Ireland

239

Illustrated draft of The Mellops Got A Car, c.

Untitled, 1957 (drawing for The Mellops Go

1955–58

Flying, page 15, first pub. 1957 by Harper &

Pen and ink on paper

Brothers, New York)

10 5/8 x 8 1/4 inches (27 x 21 cm)

Pen and ink on paper with pasted text

Children’s Literature Research Collection, Free

8 5/8 x 11 3/8 inches (22 x 29 cm)

Library of Philadelphia

Children’s Literature Research Collection, Free Library of Philadelphia

Untitled sketch of pigs approaching “New Pork City,” c. 1955–58

Untitled, 1957 (drawing for The Mellops Go

Pen and ink on paper

Flying, page 31, first pub. 1957 by Harper &

10 5/8 x 8 1/4 inches (27 x 21 cm)

Brothers, New York)

Children’s Literature Research Collection, Free

Pen and ink on paper with pasted text

Library of Philadelphia

8 5/8 x 11 3/8 inches (22 x 29 cm) Children’s Literature Research Collection, Free

Untitled, 1957 (drawing for The Mellops Go

Library of Philadelphia

Flying, page 3, first pub. 1957 by Harper & Brothers, New York)

Untitled, 1959 (drawing for Adelaide, p. 18, first

Pen and ink on paper with pasted text

pub. 1959 by Harper & Brothers, New York)

8 5/8 x 11 3/8 inches (22 x 29 cm)

Pen and ink on paper

Children’s Literature Research Collection, Free

11 3/4 x 9 inches (30 x 23 cm)

Library of Philadelphia

Children’s Literature Research Collection, Free Library of Philadelphia

Untitled, 1957 (drawing for The Mellops Go Flying, page 4, first pub. 1957 by Harper &

Untitled, 1959 (drawing for Adelaide, p. 39, first

Brothers, New York)

pub. 1959 by Harper & Brothers, New York)

Pen and ink on paper with pasted text

Pen and ink on paper

8 5/8 x 11 3/8 inches (22 x 29 cm)

11 3/4 x 9 inches (30 x 23 cm)

Children’s Literature Research Collection, Free

Library of Philadelphia

Dummy for The Mellops Go Flying, 1957 (first

Dummy for Christmas Eve at the Mellops, 1960

pub. 1957 by Harper & Brothers, New York)

(first pub. 1960 by Harper & Brothers, New

Pen and ink and watercolor on paper with

York)

pasted text

Colored pencil, marker, and pen and ink on

7 7/8 x 18 1/2 inches (20 x 47 cm)

tracing paper

Children’s Literature Research Collection, Free

5 7/8 x 15 inches (15 x 38 cm)

Library of Philadelphia

Children’s Literature Research Collection, Free Library of Philadelphia

240

Dummy for Christmas Eve at the Mellops, 1960

Untitled, 1967 (drawing for Moon Man, page 5,

(first pub. 1960 by Harper & Brothers, New

first pub. 1966 as Der Mondmann by Diogenes

York)

Verlag AG, Zürich)

Colored pencil, graphite, and pen and ink on

Collage of cut paper, pen and ink, and tempera

paper

on paper

4 3/4 x 11 3/4 inches (12 x 30 cm)

12 5/8 x 9 3/8 inches (32 x 24 cm)

Children’s Literature Research Collection, Free

Library of Philadelphia

Untitled, 1961 (drawing for The Three Robbers,

Untitled, 1967 (drawing for Moon Man, page 19,

page 5, first pub. 1961 as Die drei Räuber by

first pub. 1966 as Der Mondmann by Diogenes

Georg Lentz Verlag, Munich)

Verlag AG, Zürich)

Colored pencil, gouache, and watercolor on

Pen and ink and tempera on paper

paper

12 5/8 x 9 3/8 inches (32 x 24 cm)

11 7/8 x 8 5/8 inches (30 x 22 cm)

Children’s Literature Research Collection, Free

Library of Philadelphia

Library of Philadelphia Untitled, 1971–75 [preparatory drawing for the Untitled, 1961 (drawing for The Three Robbers,

song “Nun ade, du mein lieb’ Heimatland”

page 9, first pub. 1961 as Die drei Räuber by

(Farewell, oh my dear fatherland) in Das große

Georg Lentz Verlag, Munich)

Liederbuch (The great song book), first pub.

Collage of cut paper, gouache, and marker on

1975 by Diogenes Verlag AG, Zürich]

illustration board

Ink on tracing paper

12 1/8 x 9 3/8 inches (31 x 24 cm)

10 5/8 x 11 inches (27 x 28 cm)

Children’s Literature Research Collection, Free

Tomi Ungerer Collection, Ireland

Library of Philadelphia Kayserberg, 1974 [variation on Das große Untitled, 1961 (drawing for The Three Robbers,

Liederbuch (The great song book), first pub.

page 21, first pub. 1961 as Die drei Räuber by

1975 by Diogenes Verlag AG, Zürich]

Georg Lentz Verlag, Munich)

Ink, Conte, and watercolor on tracing paper

Colored pencil, gouache, and watercolor on

13 7/8 x 11 1/16 inches (35.2 x 28 cm)

paper

Tomi Ungerer Collection, Ireland

11 3/4 x 8 5/8 inches (30 x 22 cm) Children’s Literature Research Collection, Free Library of Philadelphia

241

Untitled, n.d. [preparatory drawing for “Muß

Preparatory drawing for Fog Island, 2012 (first

i denn, muß i denn, zum Städtele ’naus” (The

pub. 2012 as Der Nebelmann by Diogenes Verlag

Girl I left Behind Me) in Das große Liederbuch

AG, Zürich)

(The great song book), first pub. 1975 by

Pencil on paper, pencil, and photocopy on

Diogenes Verlag AG, Zürich]

tracing paper

Conte on paper

11 13/16 x 8 7/16 inches (30 x 21.5 cm)

9 3/8 x 8 inches (25 x 20.3 cm)

Tomi Ungerer Collection, Ireland

Tomi Ungerer Collection, Ireland Untitled, 1968–75 (variation on Totempole, pub. Untitled, 1975 [preparatory drawing for the

1976 by Diogenes Verlag AG, Zürich)

song “O Tannenbaum” (O Christmas tree) in

Conte on lined paper

Das große Liederbuch (The great song book), first

12 5/8 x 8 1/16 inches (32 x 20.5 cm)

pub. 1975 by Diogenes Verlag AG, Zürich]

Tomi Ungerer Collection, Ireland

Ink and Conte on paper 14 x 11 inches (35.5 x 28 cm)

Untitled, 1968–75 (variation on Totempole, pub.

Tomi Ungerer Collection, Ireland

1976 by Diogenes Verlag AG, Zürich) Conte and watercolor on tracing paper

Untitled, c. 1976 (preparatory drawing for

11 13/16 x 16 9/16 inches (30 x 42 cm)

Bonduelle canned peas)

Tomi Ungerer Collection, Ireland

Pencil on graph paper 10 x 8 1/2 inches (25.5 x 21.5 cm)

The Three Little Pigs, 1971

Tomi Ungerer Collection, Ireland

Poster 25 x 38 inches (64 x 97 cm)

Untitled, c. 1976 (preparatory drawing for

From the Collection of Jack Rennert,

Bonduelle canned peas)

New York

Pencil on graph paper 11 5/8 x 8 3/8 inches (29.5 x 21 cm)

Due to copyright restrictions, reproductions

Tomi Ungerer Collection, Ireland

of works from the Free Library of Philadelphia are not included in this volume.

Preparatory drawings for Fog Island (6 pieces), 2012 (first pub. 2012 as Der Nebelmann by Diogenes Verlag AG, Zürich) Ink on tracing paper 8 1/4 x 9 1/2 inches (21 x 24 cm), 8 1/4 x 10 7/8 inches ( 21 x 27.5 cm), 8 1/4 x 10 7/8 inches (21 x 27.5 cm), 2 x 7 inches (5 x 18 cm), 4 3/4 x 11 1/2 inches (12 x 29.5 cm), 6 x 11 13/16 inches (15 x 30 cm) Tomi Ungerer Collection, Ireland

242

CONTRIBUTORS

Claire Gilman is Curator at The Drawing Center. Peter Sís is an artist, author, and filmmaker. The recipient of a 2012 Hans Christian Andersen medal for illustration and a 2003 MacArthur Fellowship, he was born in Brno, Czech Republic, and lives in the New York area. Thérèse Willer is Director of the Musée Tomi Ungerer – Centre International de l’Illustration. She published her doctoral thesis, Tomi Ungerer: Graphic Art, in 2011 (Paris: Éditions du Rocher) and has organized numerous exhibitions on Ungerer and twentieth-century illustration.

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Co-Chairs

Tomi Ungerer: All in One is made possible by the

Rhiannon Kubicka

support of Phaidon Press, Lisa Silver and Jean

Jane Dresner Sadaka

Castelli, an anonymous gift in honor of Frances Beatty Adler, the Maurice Sendak Foundation,

Frances Beatty Adler

EDF Group, Philippe Castagnet, HarperCollins,

Dita Amory

Dominque Formhals, Fiona and Eric Rudin, the

Brad Cloepfil

French Embassy, and L’école des Loisirs.

Anita F. Contini Stacey Goergen

Special thanks to the Musée Tomi Ungerer –

Steven Holl

Centre international de l’Illustration.

Iris Z. Marden Nancy Poses Eric Rudin Galia Stawski Barbara Toll Isabel Stainow Wilcox Candace Worth

Emeritus Melva Bucksbaum Bruce W. Ferguson Michael Lynne George Negroponte Elizabeth Rohatyn Jeanne C. Thayer Executive Director Brett Littman

E D WA R D H A L L A M T U C K P U B L I C AT I O N P R O G R A M

This is number 120 of the Drawing Papers, a series of publications documenting The Drawing Centerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s exhibitions and public programs and providing a forum for the study of drawing. Margaret Sundell Executive Editor Joanna Ahlberg Managing Editor Designed by AHL&CO / Peter J. Ahlberg, Kyle Chaille This book is set in Adobe Garamond Pro and Berthold Akzidenz Grotesk. It was printed by BookMobile in Minneapolis, MN.

I S B N 9 7 8 - 0 - 9 4 2 3 24 - 91- 4 ÂŠ 2 015 T he D rawing C enter

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Essays by Claire Gilman, Thérèse Willer, Peter Sís, and Tomi Ungerer

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$30.00 US

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