How Tiger lost his Kingdom

Christian Roux is a French artist whose avant-garde illustrations and comic strips

 appeared on various magazines during the 1980s-90s under the pseudonym Cathy Millet. 

In recent years he has published some beautiful children's books with Seuil Jeunesse,

 including a striking version of Little Red Riding Hood. His style is still

in continuous evolution, and I very much enjoy the limited color palette 

and spontaneous, intricate line work of his recent pen drawings.

Le Lapin et le Tigre, published in 2009, is a Chinese tale retold by Bernard Chèze.

The large format volume is part of the innovative series "Petits contes du tapis",

designed to be read aloud to small children. The six illustrated spreads are textless, 

while the written story is presented on a separate page for the adult reader.

The tale teaches that sometimes it's better to be small and clever rather than big and powerful.

Shorka the tiger, cruel king of the forest, is tired of hunting, and requires that every day

at lunchtime an animal comes to him to be eaten. But luckily rabbit has an idea 

to save himself and his friends...

Christian Roux is now represented by the agency Illustrissimo, a powerhouse 

of French illustration which collaborates with many of my favorite artists including

 Chamo, Blexbolex, Gwénola Carrère, Delphine Durand and Delphine Lebourgeois.

Tiger on the Sunflower!

Yes, they just don't wan't to go away quite yet!

Thanks again to Niffiwan for uploading this sweet 

animation directed by Leonid Nosyrev in 1981.

The story takes place in the region of the Ussuri river, 

by the Chinese border, where Amur tigers still survive.

Monday Matticchio - Tiger in the Snow

Sunday Safari - Goodbye Tiger

1960's wooden Tiger wall plaque, originally from a French Circus, at Fears and Kahn

We are approaching the end of The Year of the Tiger 

and I wanted to salute these majestic, wonderful creatures 

who unfortunately are constantly under threat of extinction.

Long live the Tiger!

André Hellé, Grosses bêtes and petites bêtes, 1912,

thanks to the always wonderful A Journey Round My Skull

  Sergio Ruffolo, Tigre homemade greeting card

 Meg Hunt for the Cloudy Collection

Celestino Piatti, illustration for Der goldene Apfel: Eine Geschichte, 1970

found thanks to a lovely post about tigers on Booktryst

Cathie Bleck, Tiger

 Ian McArthur, Tiger

Jan Młodożeniec, Tygrysek, 1961 

Sebastiano Ranchetti, Little Tiger

 Atsushi Hara

Dale Maxey, illustration from The Wild and woolly animal book, 1966,  

thanks to Bonito Club

 Pierre Bevès, Le tigre en bois, 1961, thanks to maptitefabrique

Antonio Ligabue, Tigre con ragno, 1953

 Józef Wilkon, Ksiega Dzungli (the Jungle book)

Avant-Garde in the Nursery

Polish avant-garde artist Franciszka Themerson (1907-1988) illustrated the delightful 

My First Nursery Book in 1947. Franciszka was a woman of many talents, whose 

endeavours included painting, illustration, graphic design, stage design, 

art direction, publishing, film-making and marionette theatre. 

In many of these projects she was accompanied by her husband, the writer, 

composer and film-maker Stefan Themerson, whom she married in 1931.

Visit the Themerson Archive to appreciate the many collaborative

efforts of this wonderfully creative couple.

My First Nursery Book includes four classic tales: Who Killed Cock Robin?, 

The Gingerbread Man, Three Little Pigs and The Three Bears.

It was republished by Tate in 2009.

The cover and endpapers scans come from a guest post on Curious Pages,

in which illustrator Carson Ellis presented some of the spreads from the book.