“Morning music” : this is the title of this drawing signed Sempé, on the cover of the latest issue of New Yorker dated September 5. The French cartoonist, who died on August 11, had established a special relationship with the major New York weekly, signing 113 covers from 1978 – and now 114, which for the magazine represents “a titanic achievement”.
Tributes to the father of Little Nicholas have multiplied on both sides of the Atlantic, underlines the New Yorker, because Sempé was “a rare example: that of a French artist adored by Americans who has never lost any of his charm in the eyes of his compatriots”. Quoted by The New Yorker, American journalist Charles McGrath compared him to Brigitte Bardot, writing:
“It is a national institution: it has acquired an almost universal audience while remaining absolutely French.”
Even if, according to his wife, Martine Gossieaux, Sempé “didn’t think he was representing France or anything other than himself”.
According to her, the designer “loved the covers of the New Yorker, because he could choose his subject without any limit or obligation”. It is thanks to the magazine’s correspondent in Europe, Jane Kramer – who had met him in Paris and had brought his drawings back to New York – that this collaboration would have begun. The couple then visited the Big Apple several times.
“This image represents the spirit of New York”, explains Martine Gossieaux to the magazine. “He loved that blanket; it is an extraordinary image, because its subject is so banal.”