Sempé

It doesn't matter if there are two of us, seems to say Jean-Jacques Sempé on this tasty drawing where we find all his art of detail, composition and shifting. The draftsman has made himself the observer par excellence of the small twists and winks of everyday life, in the city or at the sea, from France to the United States. The infinite is in constant dialogue with the infinitesimal, solitude with the crowd, intimacy with the sociological.

With Jean-Jacques Sempé, let's rediscover the nostalgic perfume of rear platform buses. "We used to catch terrible colds but that was part of life in Paris! "recalls the designer who made Paris an inexhaustible source of inspiration. An undisputed master of the art of detail, an eternal music lover, Sempé conjures up the subtle shadows of Duke Ellington, Yves Montand or the pianist Samson François, but also memories of the political struggle between communists and anti-communists in the heyday of the 1960s.

Under Jean-Jacques Sempé's pencil, the little joys of childhood become these indelible memories that we remember with a nostalgic smile. Here, the sacred bathing of the summer vacations, impatiently awaited the rest of the year, becomes a swarm of children, stirred up in the immensity of the ocean. We swim, splash, float, splash... a wave of carefree happiness, before the big plunge into adult life.

How beautiful Paris is at night! Jean-Jacques Sempé delicately cuts it into quarters, stretching its streets to the horizon. The Eiffel Tower watches, golden, over the city that darkens. In the artist eye of Sempé, master of detail, the gleams in the windows encrust themselves under the roofs of television antennas, the light of the headlights reveals the passers-by; the street lamps and signs cut out the coming night.

"Jazz is to music what humor drawing is to painting", this quote lent to Duke Elligton and often used by Jean-Jacques Sempé to describe his work, made of complexity disguised as lightness. The music that would have "saved" his life, and especially musicians, jazz legends or amateurs, are themes of predilection for the draftsman. No wonder, then, that a New York jazz club becomes a refuge here to breathe swing into the gloomy winter.

After Paris, New York is the city of predilection for Jean-Jacques Sempé's drawings. Unique for a Frenchman, he drew 101 covers of The New Yorker, fulfilling his teenage dream. Who can capture the poetry and irony of the megalopolis with such subtlety, if not this detail artist with a humorous look? With Sempé New York is a festival of colors and styles, through its communities, its rites and its incessant movement.

Feline presence, graceful silhouette, purring accomplice ... Under the affectionate trait of Jean-Jacques Sempé, cats become mysterious and endearing characters. The compositions of these drawings often revolve around their pensive gaze on the world. Silent spectator of the city, the cat oscillates between the fascination for the agitation, and the melancholy of not being part of it.

After Paris, New York is the city of predilection for Jean-Jacques Sempé's drawings. Unique for a Frenchman, he drew 101 covers of The New Yorker, fulfilling his teenage dream. Who can capture the poetry and irony of the megalopolis with such subtlety, if not this detail artist with a humorous look? With Sempé New York is a festival of colors and styles, through its communities, its rites and its incessant movement.

Whatever Jean-Jacques Sempé's drawings, there are always at least two worlds that overlap. While adults sadden by the weather, grey and dull, children enjoy and snort freely, red with pleasure and drunk with games. It's a real invitation to see life differently, and try to keep a child's look in everything, free and offbeat!

Drawer of the joys of childhood, Jean-Jacques Sempé succeeds under his mischievous trait to awaken our nostalgic memories. Running in the sand after seagulls to make them fly away in a cloud is perhaps a stupidity, but above all a simple pleasure. Pure privilege of childhood, these joyful moments of unreasonable acts give wings to (en)fly a few moments of carelessness.

All of Jean-Jacques Sempé's subtle poetry and derision are found in this drawing. The Eiffel Tower, like an oversized beast emerging from the jungle, stands in the back of the Parisian, impressive and reassuring at the same time. With a shy look, the tiny communicates with the immense, and normality with dreams of grandeur. From the 7th arrondissement to Saint-Germain-des-Prés, Paris is a constant subject of observation for Sempé.

We cross all of Paris in Saint-Germain-des-Prés! Under the mischievous eye of Jean-Jacques Sempé, the terrace of the famous Café de Flore extends to the traffic jams of cars and Parisians on the mythical crossroads. The profusion of faces and situations is an inexhaustible mine for sociological exploration! If you can't find peace and quiet there, you look for yourself and you find yourself there.

On three we go? Many of Jean-Jacques Sempé's drawings celebrate the joy of being together. Childish friendships of a summer or a lifetime, in a duo or in an organized gang... but always to make the 400 moves, because it's still too early to be wise. Our little group in swimsuit fuse arm in arm to reach the sea, in an impatient and carefree moment where we hurry to be happy.

Solitude or multitude? Jean-Jacques Sempé constructs most of his drawings by staging his characters absorbed by the crowd or freely lonely. Here the tightrope walker, symbol of the solitude between heaven and earth, is closely followed by a whole agglutinated mass. A comic gathering, like birds perched high up on electric wires, sign of a sudden need to find a balance between being alone... and (badly) accompanied.

Drawing on the excessiveness of his favorite cities, Paris and New York, Jean-Jacques Sempé always manages to combine urbanism and poetry, in compositions that (re)reconcile the minuscule and the gigantic. So, no matter how far away the horizon may be, all you have to do is bend over and the buildings will let the moonlight escape. Let's meet up for a sweet night at the seventh skyscraper.

In many of his drawings, Jean-Jacques Sempé takes pleasure in giving an answer to the famous mystery that surrounds the lives of our animals in our absence. The cartoonist lends them almost human behavior, humorous reflections of our ways of being. Thus, the cat, tired of the frantic pace of a city he only knows through the window, seems happy to find "his" bed. Because when the cat is not there...

Will we ever get tired of Paris? Jean-Jacques Sempé is constantly revisiting the famous corners of the capital, taking a new and poetic look at the city, like an eternal discovery. The end of the Ile de la Cité here becomes the bow of a ship, behind which the statue of Henri IV, the buildings on Place Dauphine, the Cathedral of Notre-Dame and the Sainte Chapelle rise in an undifferentiated heap. A little bit of the world, without its world....

Line up in pairs before going to class! Jean-Jacques Sempé conjures up our nostalgic memories of school, the smell of glue and hectic recess that always ends too soon with the strident ringing. Yet the seemingly disciplined students are surrounded by hundreds of tiny footprints, ephemeral witnesses to children's fun... white as snow.  

Under the mischievous guise of Jean-Jacques Sempé, the romantic solitary walker takes on the appearance of a tourist stranded on the dreary coast. Yellow oilskin, umbrella, pastic boots... the "panopluie" of the grey days has dethroned the summer swimsuit as a beach costume. Alone on his rock, remains to look for the horizon among the clouds, facing the bitterness.

Please keep your soul as a child. This is what Jean-Jacques Sempé's drawings often seem to say, depicting mischievous little cherubs with a touching softness. Admire a tropical storm or stay caulked cautiously? A dilemma where wonder and curiosity should always prevail, at the risk of becoming as sad as the rain.

A real dog's time, ideal for a walk on the bridge of arts, celebrated by Brassens. Jean-Jacques Sempé, full of mischief and poetry, takes advantage of the Parisian mists to play with reality and models, when a Parisian and his dog are unaware that they are being followed by Henry IV on his horse. The Vert-Galant watches, like a benevolent ghost, under the towers of Notre-Dame and its now defunct arrow.

Sempé and music is a long love story that goes from Jazz to Debussy and his Clair de Lune, via Trenet, Ravel, Gershwin and Michel Legrand. On this illustration, he offers us a little journey of modesty in the philharmonic orchestra, from the conductor to the harpist, to the snare drum player all moved by this honour. 

As a childhood cartoonist, Jean-Jacques Sempé always has a tender and benevolent eye on this mischievous age where imagination is omnipresent. Straight and proudly armed, the little boy advances towards the sea with confidence and... a miniature harpoon. Will he succeed in terrorizing the seabed? No matter how successful the fishing is, the important thing is to create an adventure and to throw himself into the water.

Jean-Jacques Sempé has long dreamed of being a pianist, and even after thousands of drawings, music remains the great passion of his life. It is a favorite subject for musicians, amateurs or idols, whose talent and perseverance he admires. One of the most beautiful memories of the draftsman? An improvised moment at the piano with Duke Elligton during which he became "his right hand" to play the theme of Satin Doll.

A prelude that announces happiness, the last seconds of impatience... It is often this "before" full of promise that Jean-Jacques Sempé is interested in. The last straight line before the plunge into the summer becomes a sandy path winding its way to the sea in a crossroads of divers. 

A bestiary in the style of Jean-Jacques Sempé? All the art of the drawer's mismatch is revealed with the choice of the animal put in majesty: a Jack Russell, this popular and mischievous little dog. But being short on legs doesn't prevent this furry muse from posing proudly and displaying a dignified look. A good "reminder" to teach us how to have a dog.

Playmate, mute confidant, sidekick of nonsense ... If the dog is man's best friend, it is no less the child's best friend. The drawer Jean-Jacques Sempé excels at depicting with tenderness these moments of complicity, which give the exquisite feeling of being alone in the world. The sun is setting but our 6-legged duo seems determined to embark on new adventures, with a good step and a good mood.

Between his Parisian and New York strolls, Jean-Jacques Sempé was able to depict the small, compartmentalized world of Saint-Tropez in the 1960s. With irony, the artist plays with the codes of this microcosm where being and appearing merge. His epicenter is surely the mythical Senequier café, institution of the "French Riviera" where one must see and be seen (always through his dark glasses). All similar, the characters are like sad clowns, who bathe in idleness without taking advantage of it.

What could be more intimate than a library. All these lives lived vicariously through characters, these strings of texts that have become matter for thought, these adventures that mark in ink their words... it is this jubilation of reading that Jean-Jacques Sempé ardently celebrates. The artist suggests it through the book object, sometimes read to children, sometimes kept preciously, but always exalted as a page of his own history.

Far from the commonplace, Jean-Jacques Sempé devotes himself to illustrating the essence of cities through the lives of working-class neighborhoods, shaped by their inhabitants. Thus, at the bend in buildings, the megalopolis becomes a peaceful playground, where the crowded road gives way to a flock of children on roller skates. A gentle carelessness made of falling, speeding and laughing, proof that everything can go like clockwork.

No traffic jams and no horn for this chef on his bike, who rides his bike through New York buildings with his hat in the wind. Because in the early morning, the city belongs to the workers of the dawn, alone in the world for a few hours. A comical moment behind the scenes, revealing Jean-Jacques Sempé's talent for staging tiny, familiar, romantic characters.

Whether they are amateurs or virtuosos, soloists or members of an orchestra, at home or in the spotlight of the stage, musicians remain a subject dear to Jean-Jacques Sempé. Passionate about jazz, the artist continues to take piano lessons to this day. Beyond music, he cultivates an almost intimate relationship with his instrument, made of memories of his friends who played on it, like an indelible melodic imprint on the keys.

With this child of the cities staying in the country, Jean-Jacques Sempé illustrates a comic generation clash. Indeed, youth and its gentle carelessness, amplified during the summer vacations, is a subject dear to the cartoonist. Suddenly, the suspended rhythm gives him time to take his time... and to cultivate his secret garden.

A stolen moment from a dance class, where the clumsy chatter of the "little rats" escapes from the window. Passionate about music, Jean-Jacques Sempé regularly represents its corollary: dance, in its surge of freedom and lightness. However, the rigour of the disciplined ballerinas is in stark contrast to the graffiti of little rascals... who no longer know which foot to dance on. 

This prelude to lunch reveals all of Jean-Jacques Sempé's talent for turning a Parisian bistro into the theater of everyday life. With malice, the cartoonist depicts a comic contrast between the character's bliss and the extraordinary banality of the object of his desire: eggs in a casserole dish set in majesty. Like an invitation to take a break from the hustle and bustle of his life and the city, to savor the simple pleasure of being alone, eyes in the eggs.

Jean-Jacques Sempé's tiny characters always seem to move in an environment that is not at their scale. The draftsman thus plays with these contrasts, as here with the flute player in the center of a gigantic apartment. A dictatorship of excess that the little girl would be the only one to challenge, because she doesn't need that to be up to scratch.