Family, friends and fans are paying tribute to French cartoonist Jean-Jacques Sempet, whose simple, humorous drawings graced the covers of The New Yorker magazine and brought him international acclaim.
A funeral Mass for Sempa, affectionately known as Jay-Jay in the US, was held on Friday at the Saint-Germain-des-Prés church in Paris. Friends and relatives have paid tribute to the artist, who died last week aged 89, and his legacy. A private burial took place in the famous Montparnasse City Cemetery.
Outside the church, a poster of Sempe’s first New Yorker cover stood next to a black-and-white portrait adorned with flowers. The cover, dated August 14, 1978, depicted the facade of a New York building with a bald, bespectacled bird in a suit perched on a high window, lit by pale yellow sunlight.
The picture embodies the artist’s gentle ironic universe, sublimated by bright watercolors and a light and seemingly casual style. In his native France, he became famous thanks to the illustrations for the classic series of children’s books “Le Petit Nicolas” (“Little Nicholas”), and later specialized in drawings about the simple joys of life.
“It took me a very long time, weeks or even months, to get it right,” Sempe told The Associated Press in 2011. “You begin to think about things that gradually begin to form in your mind.”
Sempe captured the thin, fashionable tall bourgeois of Paris and the mustachioed townspeople in berets, all with the characteristic features of large noses and full of bicycles, baguettes, books and tractors. But he also found inspiration in his hometown of The New Yorker, the magazine noted in a tribute posted on Instagram.
“I like the colors of New York,” he said. “They are dynamic: bright yellows, greens, reds and blues. Paris, where I live, is beautiful, but always gray. I love Paris too, but it’s not the same.’
He drew more than 100 covers for The New Yorker after meeting the magazine’s art director in Paris in 1978. Despite its unmistakable Frenchness, Sempe’s work struck a universal nerve, depicting the human madness and neuroses that cut across cultures.
“He marked several generations. You can’t find a New Yorker print reader in the US who doesn’t know who Sempe is,” said Françoise Mouly, the publication’s current art director, in an interview with the French newspaper Libération.
Mouli praised his “universal way of addressing the point of view of people in everyday life, ordinary situations” in images that spoke to people from Paris to New York.
The 71-year-old French artist known as Gabs said Sempe inspired him to become a cartoonist.
“Sempe embodies Frenchness, the way he painted Paris, the small villages of France and scenes of everyday life,” and “a form of innocence and joy,” Gabbs said at the funeral.
French novelist Benoit Duterte gave a poignant speech, remembering his beloved friend who loved to ride his bike and drink coffee in cafes on the Left Bank, smoking a cigarette, despite being ill in his last years.
“With a touch of humor, he was a great storyteller about the development of French society,” he said.
Born on August 17, 1932, in the southwestern city of Bordeaux, Sempe briefly followed in his father’s footsteps as a traveling salesman as a bicycle delivery boy for a wine merchant, then joined the army and was posted to Paris. basic training.
There he canvassed newspaper editors to persuade them to publish his drawings, he said in his autobiography. One series of drawings entitled “Le Petit Nicolas” featuring a mischievous but good schoolboy appeared in a Belgian newspaper. This would later develop into a series of books that proved Sempa’s most enduring success.
Anne Gossini—the ex-wife of René Gossini, the author of Le Petit Nicolas, who died in 1977—addressed Sempe himself during the church service, saying, “You created Le Petit Nicolas. You brought a smile to my entire childhood. Today you are meeting (Gasini) again, I am sure of it, and I can hear you laughing until you cry.’
In 1962, Sempe published his first collection of drawings, “Rien n’est simple” (“Nothing is simple”). Some of his more than 40 books have been published in English in the US. He is survived by two children, Nikolay and Kateryna.
Former AP reporter Jenny Barchfield contributed to this report.
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