TOMI UNGERER
IT'S ALL ABOUT FREEDOM

Tomi Ungerer (1931–2019) is one of the most influential graphic artists, illustrators, and children’s book authors. Publications such as The Three Robbers, Heute hier, morgen fort and Der Nebelmann made him world famous. Ungerer also produced posters against the Vietnam War and racial conflicts, milieu studies on Herbertstraße in Hamburg, drawings that dealt with traumatic memories from the war, and large collages later in his career.

In the major exhibition Tomi Ungerer: It’s All about Freedom, produced in collaboration with the Tomi Ungerer Estate and the Musée Tomi Ungerer in Strasbourg, the Deichtorhallen Hamburg is showing the first comprehensive retrospective of nine decades of Ungerer’s work, ranging from drawings from the 1930s to objects from the 2010s.

The exhibition, which will open on the 90th anniversary of Ungerer’s birth, features nearly 400 exhibits and sheds new light on his work by illustrating the political and stylistic lines and breaks within it. With numerous unpublished works, it also offers deeper insights into the artistic dimension of his extensive oeuvre, which includes references to Otto Dix, Lyonel Feininger, and John Heartfield as well as Martin Kippenberger and Martha Rosler.

The exhibition in the Falckenberg Collection traces the connections between motifs from Ungerer’s children’s books and from his socio-political and biographical books. Unpublished works and series of works from his early career as well as preparatory studies for books and observations from his time in the United States, Canada, and southern Ireland will also be shown. A room for children presents drawings from Ungerer’s children’s books. In addition, films with and about Tomi Ungerer will be shown. The exhibition also features a selection of works from the Falckenberg Collection.

TOMI UNGERER – IT’S ALL ABOUT FREEDOM is a cooperation of Deichtorhallen Hamburg/Sammlung Falckenberg with the Musée Tomi Ungerer-Centre international de l’Illustration and the Tomi Ungerer Estate