1. Catherine Meurisse, "Le chêne et le roseau", illustration pour Fables, 2022 aux éditions de la RMN-GP, Encre de Chine et fusain sur papier. Collection de l'artiste, © Catherine Meurisse
Catherine Meurisse world's unfold into a museum full of different figures and stories.
Since 2015, the city of Strasbourg has hosted the "Rencontres de l’Illustration", which has been a collaboration between numerous museums, galleries and art spaces who presents artist who create works on paper and cartoons. Thus, for the 8th edition of the event, the Tomi Ungerer Museum – International Illustration Centre is paying tribute to Catherine Meurisse, one, if not the most important French cartoonist of her generation, which is well-known for her colourful works and numerous homage and references to artist such as Delacroix.
A few words about Catherine Meurisse
2. Catherine Meurisse, © Nicolas Trouillard
Born in 1980, Catherine Meurisse first studied at the University of Poitiers (France) in the field of contemporary literature and writing. But, she didn't really like it, thus, she will move to Paris to study in two different schools. The first one being the École publique Estienne ESAIG, a school particular designed around the learning of printing technique and graphic art, and later on the École National Supérieur des Art Décoratifs.
While she was the winner of the school press cartoon competition in 2001, she later join the satiric magazine Charlie Hebdo from 2005 until 2016. At the time she accepted the offer to join the magazine, she was only 25, she never thought she would work in this magazine for such a long time.
But those 11 years in the magazine will help her to create and mature her style and to meet with numerous great cartoonists such as Cabu, Wolinski, Charb, Luz, Riss, Tignous, Honoré, Jul and Willem.
Since her contract with the magazine was not exclusive, she also worked with many newspapers such as Le Monde and Libération, and at the same time she worked as an illustrator for young people, both in magazines and in publishing.
The layout and the works of the exhibition
The exhibition "Catherine Meurisse. A Place of One's Own" looks back at the career of the artist in four different thematic sections designed and curated by the artist, Catherine Meurisse and the conservation assistant at the Tomi Ungerer Museum - International Illustration Centre, Morgane Magnin.
In all of those sections, you will find numerous kind of works, such as press drawings, young people's books and comic strips with find inspirations in art and literature. As an artist, she felt inspired by Caravaggio, Millais, Hokusai, Proust and even Stendha, but also in the field of drawings and illustrations Doré.
Room 5: a multi-faceted artist.
Catherine Meurisse is a multifaceted artist who works as a press cartoonist, comic book author, and illustrator for children's literature. Despite the fact that her style has advanced throughout her career, her subject didn't really change, she only focus on historical scenes and everyday life moments she had during her childhood and adulthood, while using humor and poetry, the artist conveys messages about current events through her drawings.
Room 6: in the artistic world.
For the artist there is no hierarchy in the art world, she can be inspired by Doré's illustrations, prints by Hokusai, and Delacroix's paintings. Thus, this eclectic inspiration translates into her works with her powerful gestural, her use of black and colourful ink and the composition, which is sometimes taken from old masters paintings.
Room 7: between text and image
Illustration and literature are always combines in the work of Meurisse, in one of her novel "Mes Hommes de Lettres" (My Literature Men), she puts French literature through the centuries into images, which is kind of a self-hommage to her two years of study in the faculty of modern literature.
She also decided to continue these self-hommages with the illustration of La Fontaine's Fables, which gave her numerous challenges but also a name in the illustration history, thus positioning Meurisse alongside Doré, Rabier and Grandville.
Room 8: In the heart of nature
The last section of the exhibition is dedicated to Meurisse's fascination to nature, most of the time inspired by real and imagined landscapes from her native region to Japan. Most of those works are colourful, while immortalizing an environment which will disappear and weaves connections between humans and nature.
A few words about the Rencontres de l'Illustration
The exhibition is part of the events for the “Strasbourg Illustration Encounters” , which is an event presented from the 16th of March to 2nd of April 2023. The 2023 theme of these encounters is "Women, Identities, Visibilities", which runs in the libraries of the city, the Museums of the City of Strasbourg, in particular, the Tomi Ungerer Museum - International Illustration Centre, the 5th Place, the Haute École des Arts du Rhin | HEAR, and the National and University Library of Strasbourg.
Informations about the exhibition
Place: Tomi Ungerer Museum - International Illustration Center
Date: 17.03.2023 – 8.10.2023
Curators: Catherine Meurisse and Morgane Magnin
Ticket: Available at the front desk of the museum
Informations about the Tomi Ungerer Museum - International Illustration Center
2 Avenue de la Marseillaise
Villa Greiner
67 000 - Strasbourg