TOMI UNGERER
Everything is a source of inspiration and thus of redemption. Objects land and pile up in my workshop, waiting for an idea to give them a new life, a new identity. It takes but an incision across an old buoy to turn it into a frog.
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Tomi Ungerer was born in 1931, in Strasbourg, France. He lives and works in Ireland. Ungerer is best known as the award-winning author and illustrator of such beloved 1960s children’s classics as THE THREE ROBBERS (1961) and MOON MAN (1966). While producing children’s books Ungerer was also making campaigns for the New York Times and the Village Voice, biting satirical illustrations about the business world, and brutal pictorial responses to racism, fascism, and the Vietnam War. Ungerer has also made graphic erotic drawings throughout his career, gathered together in publications such as FORNICON, TOTEMPOLE, and EROTOSCOPE. Awards include the Hans Christian Andersen Award for Illustration, regarded as the Nobel Prize of children’s literature, and, in September 2014, the Commandeur de l’Ordre national du Mérite. Ungerer’s first U.S. retrospective, ALL IN ONE, is up through March 22nd 2015, at the Drawing Center, NY.