BRUNHOFF, Laurent de.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

Original Artwork: Babar the Elephant. A fine illustration of the de Brunhoffs' popular pachyderm, drawn as a birthday gift. The Babar books began as a bedtime story for Jean de Brunhoff's sons Mathieu and Laurent. After Jean de Brunhoff's death in 1937, Laurent continued the series and was to publish nearly 50 new Babar books. He regularly remarked that he was Babar.Laurent de Brunhoff (1925-2024) originally trained at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière before drawing in the style of his father. Christine Nelson wrote about an "intergenerational artistic partnership" between father and son in her book to accompany a major exhibition of Babar drawings at the Morgan Library in 2008. Critics regularly compared Brunhoff's naive style to that of the French post-impressionist Henri Rousseau (New York Times).This piece was created in 2011 in response to a letter requesting a drawing of Babar. On the reverse of the sheet is a pencil note by the artist which reads "Such a nice letter!""With Bemelmans's Madeline and Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are, the Babar books have become part of the common language of childhood, the library of the early mind. There are few parents who haven't tried them and few small children who don't like them. They also remain one of the few enterprises begun by a father and continued by his son in more or less the same style" (Gopnik).

Found via Rare Books Intel, a search across rare-book dealers, auction houses and marketplaces worldwide.