Hopefully it was indeed a peaceful end.
His daughter kept up his Twitter and Facebook accounts, and it seemed like he was, as usual, in the midst of lectures, awards, and re-issues of his famous children's books. The latest news on social media, only a few days ago, was that there was an interview with Tomi in a new issue of Comics Journal. Oddly, the mag made a point of "introducing" Tomi to American readers, claiming that he was better known in Europe.
"I'm tired," he said to me, or to nobody in particular, as he signed books at a gallery in Greenwich Village. This was about six years ago. The gallery had two rooms. One of them was for his children's art, and his political satire, including posters and ads that first appeared in the Village Voice. The second room, with a warning sign on it, was for his ADULT drawings, which involved dark fetish themes, "misogyny," and hilarious depictions of futility, control, decadence, and libertine lunacy.
People had the opportunity to wander the galleries, and then listen to Tomi give a lecture and take questions. I remember one question involved whether a certain book was going to be reprinted or not. "Oh," the elderly man said with a sigh, "that is so old. So long ago." He was promoting a new book, actually, "Fog Island," which was inspired by his lifestyle in Ireland.
Born in Alsace, displaced by the Nazi invasion, and scarred for life by the bewildering destruction of French culture by the invading Germans. He wrote about all of this, and spoke about it when requested via a Q&A session. He sometimes mentioned, with some nostalgic pride, how he and his mother were sometimes able to outwit the Germans and get around some of their oppressive rules. But he also mentioned, with ache and longing, how he was in some ways a man without a country, and that it was reflected in his adopted first name, "Tomi." Yes, it was unique and he had reason to be proud of that (it was pronounced TOE-ME) but somehow there was a sadness he carried with it, too.
He came to America with $60 and a lot of drawings. In an American Dream come true, he met a book editor who loved his work, and his first children's book was soon published.
He became, like his friend Shel Silverstein, simultaneously known for children's books and for adult humor. Playboy sponsored both of them. Tomi was also appearing in leftist and liberal magazines and newspapers, from the failed Monocle to the rising star Village Voice. Uniquely, the advertising world embraced him too. Perhaps, in an age NOT dominated by social media, Madison Avenue didn't even know about Tomi's adult cartoons, or worried that clients might balk at using a "pervert."
It was, oddly enough, the adult material, not the kiddie books, that served as my introduction to the last truly great ARTIST working in the media of political and magazine cartoons.
I was in the Marboro bookshop, long out of business, but at the time on busy 8th Street in the West Village, not too far from where I met Tomi several times at art show events. Marboro was where you could pick up the "dangerous" books published by Grove Press, including notorious authors Henry Miller and Hubert Selby. It was also the place for cheap "remainders," especially humor books that had run their course or hadn't sold at all. I got my copy of "Ensign O'Toole and Me" there, probably for a dollar. It was there that I picked up several books by Robert Paul Smith. And a few back issues of Monocle (which was a perfect bound, vertical-tilted magazine/journal). It was there that I picked up a book of Tomi's drawings, published in Germany. Fortunately, as with almost all his work, there were no captions.
His erotic, humorous art was pure that way.
Some of his erotic work even turned up in posters. I had one on the wall of my college dorm. It was, thinking about it now, kind of a bewildering image. It was a drawing of a woman in medieval garb. Her bodice was open, and she revealed...half a grapefruit. The rest of it was in her hand. Somehow, she was enjoying her own juice. Not milk. Citrus.
Most of his erotica symbolism was a lot more direct.
His works sometimes hinged on the obvious power women have even in submission, and the childlike nature of men, and their joy in "getting lucky" or being rewarded with any kind of attention or affection.
Most of his best known posters could've been framed and displayed in a dentist's waiting room, including his various ads for the Village Voice, and items that appeared in the New York Times.
I still hadn't really noticed that he'd written kiddie books.
Unfortunately, the kiddie book world began to notice that he created "dirty" illustrations. In the 80's, indignant librarians began to remove Tomi's works from the kiddie shelves.
Ungerer's most prosperous days, which coincided with the challenging 60s and included dynamic artwork on politics and race, were over. He retreated from New York City and moved to a rural farm in Canada.
Fortunately, and I think with the help of his daughter, and the supportive world of art galleries and art publications, the Renaissance Man had a renaissance in America. Of course, he was always popular in Europe, where he would eventually have an art museum created in his honor, and filled with the prolific genius's works (over 10,000 drawings and sculptures and "toys.")
He was an artist who worked in a variety of styles. He liked collage.
He saw the world in a unique way and often created sculptures out of things that he accumulated.
His famous posters used a familiar style people came to know.
And yet, hundreds of his drawings were in more traditional art forms, and he was at home using both pen and ink, and watercolor. The soft style of his children's books was vastly different from the acidic lines of his erotica.
His commercial work could be in any style. One wouldn't even recognize this as an Ungerer work unless told:
This is why, until today, I referred to him as "our greatest living artist."
I am not an art historian, but I think those in the arts would have a tough time pointing to anyone else as being more versatile, and working in so many different media. Did Calder create brilliant posters and erotica, or mostly sculpture? When you think of Mondrian or Miro, do you picture their works in your mind in anything but one style? Are certain artists, such as Whistler, known for only one work, and one done in a familiar style used by many? There's a very good reason why there is an entire museum for Tomi Ungerer.
His books (over 100) were translated all over the world. He himself wrote in French, German and English.
The last of the line, I think Ungerer re-emerged in America after the passing of Saul Steinberg, Dr. Seuss, William Steig and Shel Silverstein. Steig and Silverstein were both curmudgeonly types but who were well loved for their kiddie books. Now, the last man standing, and standing quite tall, was Tomi Ungerer.
I remember him at a Village gallery where he demonstrated for the plentiful kids in the audience, how he created his work. He magically turned blank paper into images of owls and pigs, as the kids howled with delight. You can see a portion of this in "Far Out is Not Far Enough," the documentary that was Kickstarter-funded. I remember the cameras being there, and wondered what obscure French TV network or American public access show it was for. Or whether it was just the gallery recording it for posterity. Fortunately, no, it was part of the documentary, and at one point, you can even see me in the audience.
(Parenthetically, I note that this was my motion picture debut! I was actually paid for two days' work as an extra on "Private Parts," the Howard Stern movie, but you can't even see me in that one.)
If Tomi Ungerer sometimes stunned or surprised audiences, he could be surprised, too. At least, he was caught off guard when I asked him if he'd ever met Spike Milligan. He said he hadn't, and then, with a very curious look on his face, asked me why I'd asked. I explained that in some ways, he reminded me of Spike. Spike was also beloved by children, wrote children's books, was a "spike" like Tomi (long and tall), and had such a sense of the ridiculous, but with that undercurrent of tragedy. Spike's cartooning was not anywhere near Tomi's, of course. "I would have liked to have met him," Tomi told me.
It was at another event, ending with a book signing, several years later, where the still vibrant artist said "I'm tired." In fact, when all the books were signed and the long line of people gone, he stood up to leave, and momentarily lost his balance. Someone was there to catch him, but he was not in danger of falling. He was just...tired.
At one time, he was the exact opposite, of course. Like my friends Brother Theodore and Mort Sahl, Tomi was a handful in his prime. In the "Comics Journal" interview that just came out, he recalled a lot of his "pure anger" in the 60's, and the times he was enraged by the affluent idiots he met when he lived on Long Island and attended their ostentatious parties:
"Money, money, money — everything is money. And their star fucking. If they can have a famous artist or a famous something there, they love that. Oh, I took my revenge on a lot of them. One thing I did a lot of times, when I was in Long Island, I broke into these people’s houses when they were not there and spent the night there. One night I went with my wife and I remember this big mansion. I’d been invited there, and there was a hose in the front of the garden, in front of the main door. It was 2 o’clock in the morning and I rang the bell and the light went on and finally, the guy came down. Of course, he didn’t recognize me in the dark and he opened the door and I had his own hose with the water jet directly in his face. And then we scrammed. By the time the police came, everything was gone, the water was gone."
The last time I saw Tomi, I brought my old German edition book with me, the one I'd bought some 40 years earlier at Marboro. This now very obscure tome impressed Tomi, and he mentioned that it was one of his earliest publications in Germany. Maybe even the first. He signed my book, as well as my copy of one of his children's books for sale, with his usual flourish. He also studiously went to his ink pad and stamp, and added "Don't Hope, Cope."
I'm not sure what was behind this. Was he now adding a stamped item as authentication against rising forgeries? Did somebody give him the stamp and he fell in love with it? I have no idea. I have an earlier signed book without the stamp, and two with the stamp.
Tomi did not visit America often, but he didn't need to. He was now living in the writer-friendly country of Ireland, and he had his own museum in Strasbourg, and invitations to lecture and accept awards in all the countries of Europe.
He was also the architect of this wonderful cat house:
He was most certainly best known for the kiddie books, but there was still a lot of respect for his still-relevant political posters and cartoons and, perhaps more quietly, for his erotica. Most of it had been gathered up in "Fornicon" and "Erotoscope" among others. Both are huge books; I think Tomi was not given enough credit for not only the genius of his works, but how MUCH there was of it.
In his latter years, he was once again concentrating on children's works. That would explain why there was a "Fog Island," and not a new tome of erotica. After all, one tends to go where one is appreciated, and it's hard to ignore all the bright, happy faces of children holding their copies of Mellops titles or "The Three Robbers," and hoping for more.
This is a sad day. This is a very, very sad day. It was truly a need, and a balm, to have someplace to write my remembrances of him today.
Bless him, that he died in his sleep, apparently in no pain beyond the usual aches and pains of old age. He was 87. To those who are sad, and wish that he could have continued for another decade, Tomi might offer three words:
"Don't Hope. Cope."
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