Hi – ho, echo-o-o... The mind of F’murrr, annotated by Camille Potte

As part of its Illustration Encounters series, the Tomi Ungerer Museum and International Centre for Illustration is devoting its largest institutional exhibition so far to the cartoonist F’murrr. This exhibition covers his complete work, ranging from comics to illustration. In the 1970s, with his series Le Génie des Alpages (Alpine Prodigy) F’murrr (1946–2018) became a widely known comic book author and soon one of the most celebrated figures in humorous comics. His philosopher-sheep, roaming among mountain landscapes that are at once idyllic and vertiginous, are imbued with a love of nonsense and the absurd that runs throughout F’murrr's work, together with multiple allusions to literature, everyday culture and philosophy.

There are of course the graphic novels – those on the formidably emancipated heroines Jehanne d’Arc and Naphtalène, Au Loup!, his first graphic novel, and Le Char de l’État dérape sur le sentier de la guerre, a politically loaded work on the 1980s war in Afghanistan. But as well as these, we have for the first time an in-depth, behind-the-scenes look at the artist's creative stages, at his illustration work resonant with the motifs of the world of comics.

Visitors will discover press cartoons as well as illustrations for publishing houses and agencies such as Notre Histoire, Utopia, and Anvar. For this exhibition, the illustrator Camille Potte (born in 1992 and based in Marseille) has created special graphic commentaries, echoing links between the artist's legacy and contemporary creative work.

Exhibition Curator: Anna Sailer, Curator, Musée Tomi Ungerer – Centre International de l’Illustration.
Research Advisors: Barbara Pascarel and Elisabeth Walter, “F'murrr au Futur” Endowment Fund.

The exhibition is being held with the support of the F'murrr au Futur Endowment Fund. It is part of Drawing Springtime and Strasbourg Illustration Encounters.