Exhibition
Tomi Ungerer
Forum Würth Arlesheim
Dornwydenweg
11, 4144 Arlesheim
The exhibition at Forum Würth Arlesheim offers a cross-section of the work of Tomi Ungerer (1931-2019).
Event details
The French artist Tomi Ungerer is one of the most important and at the same time most provocative illustrators of our time. His vast oeuvre includes more than 40,000 drawings, oil paintings, poster designs, collages, lithographs, woodcuts and objects. In addition, there are 140 books ranging from social satire to fairy tales, including modern children's book classics such as "The Three Robbers" or "The Moon Man".
Tomi Ungerer was born in Strasbourg in 1931. After hitchhiking throughout Europe at the beginning of his career and publishing his first drawings in the satirical magazine "Simplicissimus," his real rise began in New York in the 1950s, where he became famous as a graphic artist, children's book author, draftsman and painter. Throughout his life, he was politically active. His posters against the Vietnam War and racial segregation are eloquent statements and at the same time belong to the best examples of modern graphic design. Entertaining and equally drastic are his bitterly wicked pictorial commentaries on American high society, summarized in the volume "The Party" (1966). These and other publications, including spicy erotica, made it impossible for Ungerer to remain in the United States. His children's books were placed under censorship and even the FBI put him under surveillance. He escaped to Canada for a few years and settled permanently in Ireland in 1976. He never gave up his attitude of "illuminating his own abysses as fearlessly as those of others" (Andreas Platthaus). In his saying "Hell is the devil's paradise," Tomi Ungerer's entire ambivalent, but always open to others philosophy of life can be found.
His childhood in Alsace, which suffered in a special way between the fronts of the Second World War, resulted in his lifelong efforts for reconciliation between France and Germany. With his move to Ireland, he found not only a new home, but also a European audience. Especially since the "Great Songbook" (1975), in which he had taken up the Romantic tradition of illustration and transferred it into his chameleonic stylistic repertoire.
In his numerous works, Tomi Ungerer effortlessly interchanges the romantic style of the German house book with the quick stroke of Wilhelm Busch, the illustrative art of his Alsatian compatriot Gustave Doré with the bite of French social satirists like Grandville and the Anglo-Saxon humor of his friends Ronald Searle or Saul Steinberg.
His work is characterized by spontaneity, curiosity, experimentation, and an obsessive search for the perfect line. Thus, the brilliant observer outlines the banalities and outlandishness of the "human comedy".
The fact that, in addition to the illustrative work, there are also numerous collages and sculptures, created mainly in the last two decades, is unknown even to most admirers.
It was a merit of the large solo exhibition held in 2010 at Kunsthalle Würth to take a new look at the independent artist Tomi Ungerer, who, in addition to his commissioned works, created a fantastic universe of original works. Tomi Ungerer died in 2019 in Cork, Ireland.
The exhibition at Forum Würth Arlesheim, which can draw on the rich stock of 250 works by Tomi Ungerer in its own collection, offers a cross-section in terms of content of the oeuvre of this passionate artist, which is both profound and extremely entertaining.
Contributors and additional information:
Tomi Ungerer
Note: This text was translated by machine translation software and not by a human translator. It may contain translation errors.
Tomi Ungerer was born in Strasbourg in 1931. After hitchhiking throughout Europe at the beginning of his career and publishing his first drawings in the satirical magazine "Simplicissimus," his real rise began in New York in the 1950s, where he became famous as a graphic artist, children's book author, draftsman and painter. Throughout his life, he was politically active. His posters against the Vietnam War and racial segregation are eloquent statements and at the same time belong to the best examples of modern graphic design. Entertaining and equally drastic are his bitterly wicked pictorial commentaries on American high society, summarized in the volume "The Party" (1966). These and other publications, including spicy erotica, made it impossible for Ungerer to remain in the United States. His children's books were placed under censorship and even the FBI put him under surveillance. He escaped to Canada for a few years and settled permanently in Ireland in 1976. He never gave up his attitude of "illuminating his own abysses as fearlessly as those of others" (Andreas Platthaus). In his saying "Hell is the devil's paradise," Tomi Ungerer's entire ambivalent, but always open to others philosophy of life can be found.
His childhood in Alsace, which suffered in a special way between the fronts of the Second World War, resulted in his lifelong efforts for reconciliation between France and Germany. With his move to Ireland, he found not only a new home, but also a European audience. Especially since the "Great Songbook" (1975), in which he had taken up the Romantic tradition of illustration and transferred it into his chameleonic stylistic repertoire.
In his numerous works, Tomi Ungerer effortlessly interchanges the romantic style of the German house book with the quick stroke of Wilhelm Busch, the illustrative art of his Alsatian compatriot Gustave Doré with the bite of French social satirists like Grandville and the Anglo-Saxon humor of his friends Ronald Searle or Saul Steinberg.
His work is characterized by spontaneity, curiosity, experimentation, and an obsessive search for the perfect line. Thus, the brilliant observer outlines the banalities and outlandishness of the "human comedy".
The fact that, in addition to the illustrative work, there are also numerous collages and sculptures, created mainly in the last two decades, is unknown even to most admirers.
It was a merit of the large solo exhibition held in 2010 at Kunsthalle Würth to take a new look at the independent artist Tomi Ungerer, who, in addition to his commissioned works, created a fantastic universe of original works. Tomi Ungerer died in 2019 in Cork, Ireland.
The exhibition at Forum Würth Arlesheim, which can draw on the rich stock of 250 works by Tomi Ungerer in its own collection, offers a cross-section in terms of content of the oeuvre of this passionate artist, which is both profound and extremely entertaining.
Contributors and additional information:
Tomi Ungerer
Note: This text was translated by machine translation software and not by a human translator. It may contain translation errors.
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