Sempé

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.

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.

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.

A perfume of extravagance and  humour emblematic of Sempé's drawings. He arranged red tulips and a teeming bouquet of blue tulips, for a subtle declaration of love. 

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.

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.

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. 

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.

Dance is one of Sempé's favorite themes, along with jazz and New York. In the wings of the opera, little rats in tutus wait to enter the stage, watching for the shadow of the stars, between dream and apprehension. Humor and poetry are constantly intertwined in Sempé's drawings, like shadow and light, the immense and the infinitesimal.

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.

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.

Sempé unveils the back of the set of a great French restaurant in Manhattan. The calm of the waiter who is about to enter the room does not suggest the energy of the chefs and the kitchen clerks who assist them. French gastronomy at work. 

A drawer of urban unrest, Jean-Jacques Sempé also knows how to take a tender look at rural life, always oscillating between country caricature and the poetry of nature. This rural bicycle scene takes a comic turn here with the curious resemblance between the profile of the cyclist and that of the gallinaceous. A gentle way of life without a spat... proof that happiness can sometimes be in the meadow.

Like master, like dog? Jean-Jacques Sempé likes to represent his characters to their faithful companions, to highlight their amusing resemblance revealing a tender affinity. The result is a series of atypical and endearing duets, brought together in scenes of everyday life with a complicity that never fails to impress..

Garden party in the true sense of the word: Sempé literally inserts the crowd in the heart of the garden. Details abound, summer is declined on outfits of multiple colors, like flowers between the branches of trees. One can hear the hubbub, the laughter and the small talk, the clinking of cups and the rustling of the crowd, under the mischievous stroke of the famous cartoonist, assiduous chronicler of Parisian meetings.

Only Sempé can offer in a tasty drawing, our little foibles with humor. His little music is identifiable at first glance. Life and the show go hand in hand, on stage and in the audience. The poetry and irony of everyday life are combined in the present. Only Sempé can make us imagine that these latecomers have shared more than a simple "concert" entrance.