Although the Second World War didn't end until 1945 France was liberated from German
occupation in 1944, and to commemorate this a remarkable children's picture book was published.
La Bête est Morte was illustrated by Edmond Calvo
and it told the story of France's occupation using anthropomorphic animal characters in a
series of highly rendered and frequently complex images that are as moving as they are slapstick.
And despite the battering that France had taken in the war
there was a growing mood of optimism and laughter was back on the agenda.
One of the greatest and most influential postwar humorists was André François.
Born in Hungary in 1915 François emigrated to Paris in 1934.
His distinctive spiky cartoons first appeared in left-wing newspapers and a few illustrated books.
But after the war his surreal and radically under-drawn visual humour began to reach a global
audience when his work was regularly featured in magazines such as Punch and the New Yorker.
Roger Testu, who rather oddly signed his work Tetsu,
began his career as a painter of minimal interest
but in the early 1950s he started creating cartoons instead and had far greater success.
He was notorious for his gleeful explorations of the comedic aspects of sexual relations
and worked regularly for magazines such as Paris Match.
The humorous but frequently explicit nature of his work almost certainly explains why Tetsu's
popularity didn't travel beyond the confines of the more sexually permissive French market.
René Gruau was born Renato delle Caminate in Italy but he adopted his mother's French
surname as a child when his parents divorced and he was taken by his mother to Paris.
In his late teens he was already working as an illustrator for fashion magazines
such as Marie Claire and Vogue in Paris.
After the war he worked successfully in New York for a few years and before long his strikingly
bold images - which despite their modernity resonated with the influence of Lautrec - were
in high demand by practically every one of the biggest haute couture fashion houses.
In the 50s when fashion illustration lost ground to the rise of photography
Gruau neatly sidestepped the problem and traded on his glamorous reputation to produce
lucrative press ads, posters and other marketing material for a long line of high profile clients.
The work of Pierre Joubert was something of an oddity in French illustration.
He was a rare example of an American-style realist in the Norman Rockwell tradition,
although not quite in the same league.
Joubert was in demand for historical work and he also illustrated a somewhat sanitised Jungle Book.
But most of his imagery dealt with the positive healthier aspects of adolescence and outdoor life
as he was for many years closely associated with the French scouting movement.
Born in1924 Jean Cézard also occasionally created painted representational illustration
but it wasn't his strongest attribute.
Consequently he was considerably better known for the precise yet energetic linear comic strip work
evidenced in series such as Arthur le Fantôme Justicier, and rightly so.
His contemporary Albert Uderzo found even greater success with a similar stylistic approach and a
skilful way with expressive line work. He used his graphic talents most famously as the artist
of the globally popular Asterix the Gaul series, created with his collaborator René Goscinny.
Jean-Claude Forest created the erotic science fiction strip Barbarella in 1962 and was one of
the first French comic illustrators to achieve conspicuous success outside his own country.
The series' international popularity later led to a hit movie starring the young Jane Fonda.
And although he created other strips using the same gestural calligraphic line work
his name will always be forever inextricably linked with Barbarella.
The nihilistic cartoons of Maurice Sinet followed very much in the undrawn tradition of
André François, but Sinet's humour was much more bleak and misanthropic.
His angrily scribbled imagery took a swipe at pretty much everything and everyone
and after 20 turbulent years as a contributor
was fired by the magazine Charlie Hebdo mostly because of his staunchly antisemitic views.
Edmond Kiraz was born in Cairo in 1923 of Armenian parents. But he emigrated to France in 1959
and began his career as a cartoonist for the Parisian magazine Jours de France.
He immediately carved out a niche for himself with a highly distinctive and influential angular but
decorative style ,and proved to be particularly adept at representing young female characters.
His cartoons featured throughout the seventies in Playboy Magazine
and so influential has his work been on a virtual army of contemporary illustrators
only the period details of his illustration give away how long ago it was created.
Born in the Alsace region in 1931 Tomi Ungerer had a spectacularly long and successful career.
He moved from France to America in 1956 and that's when his popularity blossomed.
He had an incredible 140 books published during his career,
ranging from highly influential children's books such as the 3 Robbers and Emil the
Octopus through to the controversial sexually explicit Fornicon in 1967.
And he was equally prolific and globally successful
with his magazine illustration and advertising and poster work
which has ranged from the overtly commercial to the savagely political.
All things considered he is one of the most significant illustrators of the 20th century,
French or otherwise.
The cartoons of Jean-Jacques Sempé, usually known just as Sempé
follow in the scribbled tradition of André François.
And as with many of the successful scribblers he communicates precisely what he has to say
without the need for words or dialogue and in his case does it with subtle endearing humour.
Most of Sempé's work was published in Paris Match, but in America the New Yorker magazine
in particular was always happy to feature his work on the cover and in its pages.
Children's author and illustrator Alain Grée has produced around 300 books during his lifetime
and they have been popular enough to be translated into 25 different languages.
His style is quite formal -resolutely modernist
and although abstracted it has great sensitivity and broad appeal to children.
His use of simple shapes and colours and disregard for formal perspective
have become commonplace in contemporary children's publishing.
The work of Claude Serre isn't easy to categorize.
It is comic but it's also surreal and frequently as bleak in content as that of Maurice Sinet.
As much as it makes you laugh it makes you wince.
His crosshatched humorous work has featured in many French magazines
but its rather esoteric appeal has lent itself much better to the creation of several books,
each of which explores a particular theme with his trademark visual wit
In essence Serre is an artist who uses the medium of the cartoon to express himself.
And Guy Billout is another clear example of someone who very much
blurs the line between artist and illustrator.
Billout worked in advertising for a few years before moving to New York City in 1969.
There he found success when he was published first in the New Yorker magazine,
and went on to be published by pretty much all the major publications in the states.
His images use an aesthetically clinical style which is clean and spare,
and his worldview is classically surrealist with moments of ironic humour.
In addition to his magazine work his eerily unemotional illustration
has been featured in several books, including some for children.
Despite her status as a national treasure Claire Bretécher's considerable success
in France hasn't really translated beyond her home territory.
Born in 1940 she is known and admired particularly for her playful but merciless cartoon portrayals
of women and related gender and relationship issues.
She is another in the longstanding tradition of scribbly French cartoonists who can make
seemingly casual marks which nevertheless communicate with great clarity to the viewer.
And although she occasionally relies on dialogue to make a point
a lot of her work is driven by the accuracy of her vision alone.
The quarterly comics anthology Métal Hurlant first appeared in 1974 and was a collaboration
between artists Jean Giraud, known as Mœbius and Philippe Druillet with writer Jean-Pierre Dionnet.
It was very successful for a couple of decades and it even had an impact
in its spiritual home the USA.
Later issues evolved into a more journalistic format with articles and reviews but continued
to give opportunities to a wider range of illustrators
such as Serge Clerc, Frank Margerin and Nicole Claveloux, among many others.
Cartoonist Bernard Verlhac, known better by the pseudonym Tignous was born in 1957.
His wildly gestural and loose cartoons were a
regular feature in the pages of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.
And no doubt his cheerful irreverent doodles
would still be featured if he had not been one of the dozen people murdered by terrorists
at the magazine's Parisian offices in the infamous 2015 massacre.
The professional partnership of Philippe Dupuy and Charles Berbérian
is highly unusual as they share every aspect of creating their stories and illustrations, from
plot through to layouts, pencils and inks, and it is impossible to separate out just who did what.
They are best known for their quietly downbeat comic albums
featuring the character Monsieur Jean, and the endearing Henriette.
The styling of their imagery is deliberately backward looking
with a distinctly 50s feel to the gestural and boldly calligraphic line work .
And the application of tasteful usually limited and frequently offset colour
also give the images a particularly Parisian look.
And to conclude this series I’ve put together this cross section of work
by some prominent contemporary French illustrators
who will almost certainly be favourably remembered by future generations.
When I started making this series I had no idea
there would be so many great French illustrators to feature,
and I regret there have been many more I've had to leave out to keep it down to three instalments.
And I hope you’ll agree that although a wide spectrum of illustrative styles
is well represented I don't think its an exaggeration to say there is also a clear
prevailing sense of national identity in a lot of the work.
Certainly a great many of these French illustrators seem quite happy to
disregard pure representation in favour of more personal idiosyncratic and minimalist styles.
As I said at the outset it's undeniable that whether we like it or not
we are all the cultural vassals of America now but its refreshing to see
there are many in France at least who have maintained their stylistic independence.
And without their massive contribution over more than 3 centuries of innovation
and creativity this world would be a far less visually interesting place.