All in One: An Interview with Tomi Ungerer

Tomi Ungerer retrospective, The Drawing Center

museum exhibition review and interview

The paris review

Fear of Feelings, 1982 (drawing for Symptomatics, published by Diogenes Verlag AG, Zürich), ink, ink wash, and colored pencil on tracing paper, 10" x 8". Tomi Ungerer Collection, Ireland. © Tomi Ungerer/Diogenes Verlag AG, Zürich

Fear of Feelings, 1982 (drawing for Symptomatics, published by Diogenes Verlag AG, Zürich), ink, ink wash, and colored pencil on tracing paper, 10" x 8". Tomi Ungerer Collection, Ireland. © Tomi Ungerer/Diogenes Verlag AG, Zürich

At the opening for the Drawing Center’s “All in One,” Tomi Ungerer’s first U.S. retrospective, swarms of visitors obscured the art on the walls. The crowd bent toward the artist, who was holding court and a glass of red wine, though none was being served. Ungerer, who is eighty-three, was in his element. For him, this retrospective is a kind of homecoming. After more than forty years in exile, his career is finding its rightful place in the New York art world.