Jean-Jacques Sempé, designer of "Little Nicolas", died at 89
French designer Jean-Jacques Sempé, known for his illustrations of the adventures of "Little Nicolas", died on Thursday August 11 at the age of 89.
AFP - MARTIN BUREAU
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French designer Jean-Jacques Sempé died on Thursday August 11 at the age of 89, his wife Martine Gossieaux Sempé announced to Agence France-Presse.
He was known for his illustrations of the adventures of
Little Nicolas
and his humorous press cartoons.
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Comedian Jean-Jacques Sempé passed away peacefully on Thursday evening, in his 89th year, in his vacation home, surrounded by his wife and close friends
," said Marc Lecarpentier, his biographer and friend, in a statement. statement to
AFP
.
Born in 1932 in Pessac, near Bordeaux, the designer has published a dozen albums in his career.
He sold his first boards in 1950 to
Sud-Ouest,
which he signed “DRO” (from “to draw”).
Since Le
Petit Nicolas
, which he created in 1959 with René Goscinny, Jean-Jacques Sempé has published almost one album a year and signed a hundred front pages in the press, excelling in the art of understatement.
Improbable musicians, Sunday painters, megalomaniac writers, mythomaniac bosses or butterfly collectors: Sempé's hero is a little fellow, like Marcellin Cailloux, the blushing little boy, or Monsieur Lambert, the office worker with narrow shoulders and high voice.
Their candor saves them from ridicule.
"
I'm a humorist, so I don't exclude myself from the humanity that I draw
", admitted the designer with his neat and rare words.
“
I am close to my characters, they are like me.
By making fun of them, I make fun of myself.
»
Great French master of humor and poetry, a mixture of derision and modesty, Sempé has traced from the 1950s until today a work full of bonhomie: drawings for the
New Yorker
,
Paris Match
or
L' Express
to the albums of
Petit Nicolas
, sold today to some 15 million copies.
A natural child, beaten and stuttering, Sempé did not really have the childhood of his hero Nicolas, whom he raised with René Goscinny (one of Asterix's fathers) in an idealized France of the 1950s.
In each of Sempé's works, we find his favorite themes: the smallness of man in nature, his loneliness in the city, his arguments, his ridicule and his excessive ambitions, the limits of team spirit.
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To read also: Jean-Jacques Sempé, designer without borders
(
With
AFP)
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