Tomi Ungerer  28.11.1931 - 9.02.2019

"Far out is not far enough . . . "

I just learned another hero of mine has died. The legendary artist Tomi Ungerer has passed away peacefully in his sleep. Here is a little tribute video where he mentions death . . . . . . . . from his website

 I had an original for a while that I picked up at the MOMA fundraiser for a children's charity that they organised there. The illustration was a collage of a cat (Ungerer loved cats and they featured widely throughout his work) and the cat was playing a drum but it frightened my children so I sold it on to the then Head of Graphics at Kingston Upon Thames, my old friend Brian Love and his wife Chris Newton who had been the Education Officer at MOMA. 
 I have an amusing anecdotal story about the great cartoonist, artist and children's book writer and illustrator.

I was always a huge Tomi Ungerer fan and when working at MOMA in Oxford I happened at one time to have many of Tomi's books from his publisher Diogenes Verlag on sale in the shop. Now I prided myself on my knowledge of particularly contemporary art and artists and if I was a fan I could be expected to recognise a wide range of artists. Late one afternoon Ungerer himself came into the Museum much to my amazement and starting browsing the shop he caught my eye when checking out that I had by happy coincidence quite a lot of his bookwork on display and on the shelves. I smiled and asked him if I could do anything for him and he was very pleasantly surprised to be recognised. I explained I was a huge fan and asked him if he would sign a book for me and he was especially gracious and took time to do one of the most ornate signatures I have ever seen in a general book on him that I had to hand. I treasure it to this day and tried to find it so I could post a picture here but can't find it for the moment in the library wing of the vaults here at Swappers Mansions. 

The story goes on as Tomi asked me if the then director David Eliot was in that day and said he would like to see him.
 I telephoned upstairs into David's office and said
"David, I have Tomi Ungerer for you."
to which he replied as one might
"Oh er okay put him through" thinking he was on the phone
I had to say
"er No David, he is here"
to which again David Eliot replied
"What? He's here? In the building?!"
"Stood right in front of me!" Tomi smiled as he imagined how the conversation might be going
"Oh okay!' said the Director sounding surprised beyond belief as this was very uncommon for any artist to present to the Director in person and people of his calibre rarely saw people on spec but any artist worth their salt would have usually made an appointment. He came down to meet the great man and they talked for some considerable time as David had been interested in a show featuring Tomi, a retrospective perhaps, and yet it wasn't to be as Tomi thought he wanted the whole Museum (3 whole floors!) and as gallery shows went we had NEVER done that and it never came to pass unfortunately and the irony being of course that Ungerer could easily have filled the entire gallery three times over with the very best of his work. I have never forgotten that day.

Tomi Ungerer website