Tomi Ungererer (1931–2019) was a French born illustrator of children’s books (and some for adults) and posters. His first book was The Mellops Go Flying, about an adventurous family of pigs. The follow-up was entitled The Mellops Go Diving for Treasure, after which more were added to the series.

After leaving his homeland, he has travelled and lived all around the world. He moved to New York in the 1950s where he created work for publications such as The New York Times, Village Voice, Life and Esquire. In 1971, he and his 3rd wife emigrated to rural Nova Scotia, Canada where he became a farmer. In the mid-1970s, they moved again, this time to West Cork in Ireland; they divided their time between here and Strasbourg until his death in 2019.

Much as I love his children’s book illustrations, it’s his hard-hitting political posters that really grab my attention. In his own words:

Posters for me are the most challenging and gratifying exercise. A poster has to act by impact, to catch the eye of a passerby within a few seconds. I would say the poster is more of an art form than most other kinds of advertising.
In the 1960’s I started to make political posters. Two subjects sparked my revulsion and my anger: racial segregation and the War on Vietnam. Later I did posters for other causes such as Amnesty International, liberty of the press, animal rights, ecology, nuclear disarmament and so on.

In 2007, the Tomi Ungerer Museum in his home-town of Strasbourg first opened its doors. Back in 1975, he’d donated a large part of his work and currently, the museum’s collection includes 11,000 of his drawings, as well as 6,500 toys from his personal collection.

As well as being an illustrator, he was a sculptor and architect. He designed a kindergarten in Karlsruhe, Germany which is uniquely shaped like a reclining cat. The front door is its mouth and its tail is a silver slide through which the children can exit.

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Additional image credits:
Phaidon | Tomi Ungererer