The Drawing Center will present Tomi Ungerer: All in One (January 16–March 22, 2015), the first US retrospective of this extraordinary artist. Beginning with his childhood drawings depicting the Nazi invasion of Strasbourg, through his work in New York and Canada, and concluding with the artist’s most recent political and satirical campaigns, as well as his illustrations for the 2013 children’s book Fog Island, Tomi Ungerer: All in One will re-introduce this wildly creative individual to New York City and the world. The exhibition will occupy the entire Drawing Center, with a spotlight exhibition of Ungerer’s erotic drawings in the Drawing Room and animations in the lower-level Lab gallery. Curated by Claire Gilman, Curator.

Tomi Ungerer is best known as the award-winning author and illustrator of such beloved 1960s children’s classics as The Three Robbers (1962) and Moon Man (1967). But the virtuoso draftsman—who was born in Alsace, France, in 1931, and who currently resides in a remote part of Ireland near Cork—is much more than this. Even as Ungerer was busy producing children’s books for the publisher Harper & Brothers, he was making a name for himself with witty advertising campaigns for The New York Times and The Village Voice, biting satirical illustrations about the business world, and brutal pictorial responses to racism, fascism, and the Vietnam War. Ungerer also made graphic erotic drawings throughout his career. That Ungerer is not as well known in America today as he is in Europe is largely due to his self-imposed exile in 1971, when he and his wife abruptly abandoned New York and relocated to a farm in Nova Scotia, where Ungerer produced some of his most exquisite drawings to date. In 1990 Ungerer was awarded the Legion of Honour in Paris, and in 2007 the Tomi Ungerer Museum opened in Strasbourg—the first nationally funded French museum to be dedicated to a living artist. The film documentary Far Out Isn’t Far Enough: The Tomi Ungerer Story was released to critical acclaim in 2012.

Tomi Ungerer is known worldwide as a children's book author, illustrator, and graphic artist. He has received countless awards, including the Hans Christian Andersen Award for Illustration, regarded as the Nobel Prize of children's literature, and, in September 2014, the Commandeur de l’Ordre national du Mérite—one of the highest honors in France—in recognition of his lifelong efforts to fight prejudice by artistic and political means, and in particular, his work for Franco-German friendship. In October 2000, he was named an ambassador for children and education by the European Council and, in 2007, the French state dedicated a museum to Ungerer in his home town of Strasbourg. Ungerer's books have been published in 41 languages. He lives with his family in Ireland and Strasbourg.