Testament is published to coincide with a major retrospective exhibition in London of one of the world’s most famous graphic artists, to be held at the Royal Festival Hall in March 1985. From Tomi Ungerer we can expect the unexpected. Testament – which spans twenty years of his enormously successful career – is filled with surprises. Familiar images are re-assessed from new angles: the improbable, the sinister, the macabre. This is Tomi Ungerer’s vision – it is also his genius. With a fearless eye this master of satire and the absurd pinpoints those areas of our society which we may wish to ignore, and translates his observations into images of immediacy and startling boldness.
Ungerer is relentless in exposing human behaviour, as each powerful image cuts through surface appearances to reveal black humour in the underlying realities. From the needless horrors of war and the glorification of violence, through sophisticated pretensions and pomposity, to the little man, often isolated, who ridiculous actions – tinged with heavy satire – may evoke pathos, nothing and no one is exempt from Ungerer’s dark and biting humour.
Newsweek has aptly said of Ungerer’s startling graphic commentaries, `they thud into the solar plexus and stab the intellect’. They are also very funny. This collection is as thought-provoking as it is entertaining. Above all, it is a testament to the inexhaustible wit and imaginative skill of Tomi Ungerer. [dust-jacket].
Binding Note
Black cloth boards. Spine lettered in red: TESTAMENT. Tomi Ungerer. With pictorial dust-jacket.