Above: a "reworking" of Georges Seurat's A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of
La Grande Jatte - 1884
Laurent de Brunhoff (1900-1937) , the son of Babar's creator, Jean de Brunhoff, picked up where his father left off, continuing to create new storybook adventures for Babar and his friends. Although Jean de Brunhoff created Babar with his art, it was the imagination of his wife,
Cecile, from which Babar originated. She originally invented Babar as a character in bedtime stories which she told to her sons.
Meet the family that gave us Babar
The watercolors depicted here are a few of several illustrations in a book called
Babar's Museum of Art.The original works were also part of an exhibition geared toward children which toured U.S. museums and galleries in the summer of 2009.
Shown in the exhibition are illustrations created for the children’s book Babar’s Museum of Art. “The book tells the story of how Babar the Elephant and his wife Celeste transform an old train station into an art museum,” says Tomio. “In the book, de Brunhoff pays tribute to artists such as Leonardo da Vinci, Paul Cezanne, and Picasso by adorning the museum’s walls with classic works of art with a clever twist – the characters depicted in those works of art are all elephants.”
That must have been some job to cut the ear of an elephant version of Van Gogh. ;-)
de Brunhoff's version of The Dream by Henri Rousseau
