French children’s book illustrator Jean-Jacques Sempé, who created the beloved Little Nicolas series, passed away at the age of 89.
How Did Jean-Jacques Sempé Die?
The French cartoonist Jean-Jacques Sempé, best known for his Le Petit Nicolas (Little Nicholas) children’s books, passed away on Thursday. He was 89.
In a statement to Agence France-Presse, his friend and biographer Marc Lecarpentier said, “The cartoonist Jean-Jacques Sempé died quietly on Thursday evening, August 11, 2022, in his 89th year, in his vacation home, surrounded by his wife and his close friends.
But compared to the anguish of his own background, Sempé treated his subjects with kindness. He avoided the matter for decades, but in his 80s he said, “You never get over your childhood.”
“You strive to arrange things so that your recollections look better. However, you never move past it.
Sempé denied his own brilliance for a long time, attributing his success to toil and sacrifice rather than natural talent.
The artist admitted that it could take him up to three weeks to perfect a single drawing and that, in order to complete his work on time, he was willing to “not bathe, not sleep.”
Who was Jean-Jacques Sempé?
The Nicolas stories were a way to revisit the misery I endured while growing up while making sure everything came out just fine
Sempé said in 2018
Sempé was inspired by memories of his own youth to create the naughty schoolboy who always manages to escape from scrapes both inside and outside of school.
French cartoonist and illustrator Jean-Jacques Sempé created cluttered cartoon panels that offered wry criticism on the silliness and tedium of urban life. His drawings, which include sequential ones, have been published in French periodicals including Sud-Ouest Dimanche, Ici Paris, and Paris Match since the 1950s.
Together with author René Goscinny, Sempé developed the endearing stories of “Le Petit Nicolas” (also known as “Little Nicolas,” 1954–1965), a comic strip that featured a Parisian schoolboy narrating about his daily life.
In addition to magazine cartoons, Jean-Jacques Sempé also illustrated books, posters, ads, postcards, and stickers. Beginning with “Rien N’est Simple” (1962), “Tout Se Complique” (1963), and “Sauve Qui Peut,” publisher Denol has also published over 25 book collections containing Sempé cartoons following the success of “Le Petit Nicolas” (1964).
Jean-Jacques Sempé wiki
Sempé, who was born on August 17, 1932, in the town of Pessac west of Bordeaux, abandoned formal education at the age of 14 after the Second World War interfered with his education. Later, he attempted work as a wine merchant, toothpaste salesman, and delivery boy, among other positions.
He began contributing illustrations to the local newspaper Sud Ouest in 1950, signing them with the fictitious initials DRO, a play on the word “draw” in English.
Sempé ended up in Paris soon after due to his military service. He fell in love with the city and never left, spending the majority of his remaining years in the Saint-Germain-des-Prés neighbourhood in the sixth arrondissement.
Jean-Jacques Sempé early career
Little Nicholas – Happy as Can Be, a film by Amandine Fredon and Benjamin Massoubre that was most recently inspired by the works, took up the grand prize at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival in June.
Martine Gossieaux Sempé, the wife of Sempé, informed the French news organisation Agence France Press that her husband passed away on August 11.
The [Nicholas] books have been turned into a well-liked movie and animated television series, and they are currently one of the world’s best-selling books with over 15 million copies sold in 45 different countries.
He continued to sell drawings to newspapers to make ends meet in 1959, despite the fact that they were generally ignored at the time. He later called his early career “awful.”
He didn’t achieve long-term success until he was employed by The New Yorker in 1978. “I was about 50 years old and realised I existed for the first time ever! I had at last located my family,” he declared.
He was requested to submit cover art to The New Yorker magazine in 1978, and he did so for more than forty years, contributing more than a hundred times.
More New Yorker magazine covers than any other artist were illustrated by Sempé.
Jean-Jacques Sempé works
Young Nicholas (Le Petit Nicolas), Nicholas Again (Les Récrés Du Petit Nicolas), Nicholas on Vacation (Les Vacances Du Petit Nicolas), and Nicholas And the Gang (Le Petit Nicolas Et Les Copains) are some of the most well-known works.
Other movies influenced by the works, besides Little Nicholas-Happy as Can Be, are Laurent Tirard’s Nicholas On Holiday and Julien Rappeneau’s Little Nicholas’s Treasure.
The later illustrated piece “Raoul Taburin” tells the story of a bicycle store owner who harbours the dreadful secret that he is incapable of riding a bicycle. Benoit Poelvoorde played the title character in Pierre Godeau’s 2018 adaptation of the story for the big screen.
With the same care and attention to detail he used to depict his beloved Paris, Sempé also won notoriety for his 101 cover drawings for the New Yorker magazine starting in the late 1970s.
But compared to the anguish of his own background, Sempé treated his subjects with kindness. He avoided the matter for decades, but in his 80s he said, “You never get over your childhood.”
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“You strive to arrange things so that your recollections look better. However, you never move past it.
Sempé denied his own brilliance for a long time, attributing his success to toil and sacrifice rather than natural talent.
The artist admitted that it could take him up to three weeks to perfect a single drawing and that, in order to complete his work on time, he was willing to “not bathe, not sleep.”
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