Expositions 2024

A childish line

Bewildered, cheerful, grumpy, wacky characters... Welcome to the colourful and absurd world of Delphine Durand!
For 30 years, this true heir to Barbapapa and the Shadocks has been inspiring smiles and empathy with her often hilarious, always endearing characters. But behind the apparent naivety of her children's books Ma Maison, Bob et compagnie and Les Mous, Delphine Durand plays with language and tackles more serious subjects with derision, such as the human condition, the meaning of life and ‘things that may exist, but we're not sure’.

With more than forty books published in France and abroad, works for the press, collaborations for brands and even cuddly toys that come to life (yes, they do!), this retrospective exhibition offers a wealth of previously unpublished treasures unearthed in the artist's studio. Young and old alike can discover over 200 original drawings, sketchbooks, paintings, objects and many other surprises. A treasure hunt will take visitors off in all directions so they can rediscover everything that makes Delphine Durand so special: a great deal of freedom through childhood and drawing.

Born in 1971, Delphine Durand graduated from the École Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs in Strasbourg. She belongs to a generation that attended the classes of Claude Lapointe, author and pioneer in the teaching of illustration. She was quickly spotted by her elders, as evidenced by the Figures Futur prize she won in Montreuil in 1994, the Arts Décoratifs prize she was awarded in Strasbourg in 1995, and her selection for the Original Art Show in New York in 1999. Delphine Durand regularly shares studios with her peers in Marseille and Paris. It will come as no surprise to learn that she has crossed paths there with Boulet, Chamo, Benjamin Chaud, Anouk Ricard and Bruno Salamone.

Represented by the Illustrissimo agency for communication images, she is also accompanied by a specialist agent for English-speaking publishers of children's books. As a result, illustrated texts appeared repeatedly in London and New York, before being translated into multiple languages. Meanwhile, in France, the author is expanding her artistic world, illustrating novels and picture books, as well as telling her own stories. She is said to have more than forty books to her credit, and some say around fifty...

On the subject of the status of author-illustrator, Tomi Ungerer used to say: ‘I write what I draw and I draw what I write’.There's also a certain graphomania at play in Delphine Durand's work. But it's a writing mania in which letters are replaced by eyes, paws or tufts of hair, and words are characters ready to tell a story. For her, illustrating a text by someone else and drawing for a project of her own are two very different things.

‘Being an author is both worrying and exciting, given the immense amount of personal creation involved.'

Illustration work, on the other hand, involves another part of herself, which flourishes in the comfort of a text that has already been completed.

And it's not just books, as Delphine Durand's drawings take on forms beyond paper. Mademoiselle Zazie, a series of illustrated novels written by Thierry Lenain, became an animated television series in 2013, while toy manufacturer Moulin Roty has been developing a rich collaboration with the artist since 2019. A new family was then born: the Schmouks!
Cousins of the Mous, these quirky characters came to life in a series of highly embodied plush toys and games books.

We invite you to take a look at all these different aspects here, to help you better understand the world of this prolific author of children's books.
Through sketches, original drawings, digital prints and children's books,
let's discover this strange menagerie, with its many variations and evolutions...

Translation : Éric Moreau