Error during command authentication.

Print

---

The Morgan Library & Museum is pleased to announce the publication of Drawing Babar: Early Drafts and Watercolors, by Christine Nelson, Drue Heinz Curator of Literary and Historical Manuscripts at The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, with an essay by Adam Gopnik.

 

Drawing Babar, Early Drafts and Watercolors is a comprehensive study of the composition of the first book by each of Babar’s two authors-father and son Jean and Laurent de Brunhoff-complete with over two hundred color photographs of manuscript drafts and drawings, transcriptions of all preliminary and final French text along with English translations, and two illustrated essays that provide the cultural context of one of the most successful children’s series of all time.

 

Drawing Babar returns us to the two essential moments of Babar’s creation: when Jean de Brunhoff and, years later, his son Laurent set down their initial thoughts on paper. Their earliest drafts, shown here in juxtaposition with their finished watercolors, allow us to track the changes, both subtle and substantive, that both men made as they refined their work, bringing together word and image with both elegance and exuberance.

 

In 2004 The Morgan Library & Museum acquired the working drafts and printer-ready watercolors for Histoire de Babar, le petit éléphant (1931), the first book by Jean de Brunhoff (1899-1937), and Babar et ce coquin d’Arthur (1946), the first book by Laurent de Brunhoff (b. 1925). Together these two collections-published here virtually in their entirety for the first time-provide an extraordinary record of the working methods of the two men, both painters turned storytellers. From the naming of Babar himself (first called simply “Baby Elephant”) to the introduction of the beloved character Queen Celeste-not present in Jean de Brunhoff’s initial draft-these early sketches and watercolors provide an intimate look at the creation of an enduring fictional world.

 

Published by The Morgan Library & Museum, New York.
9 x 12”, 164 pages, 248 color illustrations
September 2008
$50 hardcover (978-0-87598-151-2)
$30 paper (978-0-87598-152-9)
For ordering information, please call 212-590-0390.