Vietnam

“I simply do drawings based on my life", explains Tomi Ungerer.  "It’s perfectly simple. When I do children's books, it’s my childhood. Everyone has a childhood. When I do erotic stuff, it's because I have sex like any healthy man. Just like when you eat, you eat. When I get angry, I draw a picture of my anger. If it's the Vietnam War, I go all out against the Vietnam War."
His youth spent during the Second World War gave Ungerer a fierce hatred of armed conflict. As a humanist he is deeply opposed to war. While living in New York in 1967, Tomi Ungerer was contacted by a group of students and professors from Columbia University to do drawings for a poster campaign against the Vietnam War. The projects were refused, their tone being considered too provocative but, at his own expense and with the help of his friend and poster editor Richard Kasak, the artist decided to print seven of the drawings.
The style of these political posters is characterised by their aggressive line and sharply contrasting colours. Each tackles the theme of war by reinterpreting myths like that of Chronos, or slogans like the famous Give, used in his charity campaigns. There are also references to torture (Eat) or to the consumer society, with an obese statue of liberty. This campaign was the expression of virulent, uncompromising criticism of American politics.