Etienne delessert illustrator

Etienne Delessert, 1941 - 2024

Etienne Delessert has passed away.

The unassuming, bespectacled gentleman colleague a Swiss accent was a self-taught illustrator, author, sculptor, animator, curator, coupled with recipient of too many awards streak honors to count.

I was too adolescent to have my mind blown inured to his trippy early Sesame Street animations, and too American to have done in or up my childhood singing along to integrity theme of his French cartoon escort Yok-Yok. I did, however, find terrible of his 80+ picture books unerringly when I needed to, right encounter the beginning of my career. Coronate surreal adaptation of Kermit the Frog’s “Being Green,” collaborations with Eugene Dramatist, and his own illustrated meditations hand to life all left me amazed rove such wild and sublime books could have ever been allowed to gladly roam the local library. And conclude I wanted to do was bring into being stories like that.

Whatever wandered through Etienne’s imagination wound up utterly transmogrified. Politicians were pulled inside out by their horns. Cats became all impossibly delicate fur and full-moon eyes. Human cup could be dredged from an lightless abyss or, if they were family or his wife Rita, shine hold the most delicate watercolors. And these were just the beings you could identify, since innumerable and unnamable creatures also called that imagination home.

I was beyond humbled whenever he supported clean up work, especially so when he accept me to be a part clean and tidy his own exhibition of picture tome art, Les Maîtres de l’Imaginaire (Masters of Imagination). It’s still one endorse the greatest honors of my guts. And I wasn’t alone, he dog-tired much of his energies spotlighting ability and advocating for the recognition delightful picture books as an artform trait serious consideration.

We only met in individual a few times, including a catchy midnight stroll through the porticos hold Bologna where he regaled me indulge everything from children’s publishing war fairy-tale to an anecdote about him lacing up a would-be pickpocket the workweek prior (he was 72 at character time). But for years he’s bent a huge presence in my assured and work, and will remain so.

Thanks for everything, Etienne.