Laurent de Brunhoff, in March 1969 in Paris (AFP / -)
The French author and illustrator Laurent de Brunhoff, who died Friday at the age of 98 in the United States according to American media, successfully continued the adventures of Babar, a character adored by children around the world, created in 1931 by his parents.
“In the big forest, a little elephant was born. His name is Babar”: when writing this incipit, under a drawing, Laurent’s father, Jean de Brunhoff, did not imagine the incredible destiny of his placid pachyderm in green suit, which has become a classic.
Babar’s albums – around twenty that we owe to Laurent and seven to his father – have sold millions of copies, particularly in the United States, and have been translated into dozens of languages.
It all started like a story: Jean’s wife, Cécile, who was a pianist, liked to tell her two little boys, Laurent and Mathieu, the adventures of a little elephant whose mother was killed by a hunter, who fled to the city, met a kind old lady, learned to live among men then returned to the forest to marry Celeste and become king.
Seduced by the story, her husband, who was a painter and had just designed the children’s dining room on the liner “Normandie”, put it into images and made a book.
Published in 1931 by Editions du Jardin des Modes, before the collection joined Hachette Jeunesse in 1936, Babar’s adventures immediately met with success.
“There were very few books for children then. My father’s imagination and poetry were (new) as was his way of drawing, neither stylized nor realistic”, explained 40 years later Laurent, a thin and elegant, with a receding hairline and keen eyes.
He was 12 when Jean died of tuberculosis (in 1937), 13 when his uncle Michel, who directed the French edition of Vogue, took over as interim and 21 when he took up the torch, in 1946, with “Babar et ce rascal of Arthur.” Cécile was to die at the age of 99.
“Continuing Babar was prolonging my father’s life,” he said, stressing that he had an enchanted youth.
– The “mammoth song” –
Born on August 30, 1925 in Paris, Laurent studied painting. He had especially observed, in the family home in Chessy (Seine-et-Marne), his father’s work on Babar. He will remain faithful to it by favoring explosions of color and maintaining the large format. Before Babar, children’s albums were small.
Babar celebrates his 80th birthday in November 2012 at the New York Stock Exchange (GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / Neilson Barnard)
“Babar and that rascal of Arthur”, “The Célesteville party”, “Babar on the soft planet” or even “Babar in Paris” (2017)… so many albums signed Laurent which marked the childhood of baby boomers and those of their children or grandchildren. All gathered around the “Song of the Mammoths” and its singular words: “Patali dirapata, cromda cromda ripalo, pata pata ko ko ko”.
In his boards, Laurent refused too many concessions to fashion and nasty scenes, instead playing on the eternal and touching stupidities of little ones (climbing trees, swallowing a rattle, having a stroller accident, almost drowning, etc.). All with family, of course!
Babar and his family have been available in more than 500 objects, from school bags to bed sets, from wallpaper to perfume. He was the hero of several exhibitions, was put to music by Francis Poulenc in 1945, in board games, in images and on records.
And the saga is not about to disappear: today’s children can follow the adventures of Badou, Babar’s grandson, on streaming platforms, in 3D.
Laurent de Brunhoff, who also worked for school editions at Hachette and Nathan, settled in the United States and married the American author Phyllis Rose. He donated original Babar plates to the Morgan Library in New York as well as to the Bibliothèque nationale de France.