On the forecourt of the church of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, in Paris, two large photos reveal a man whose talent is matched only by generosity.
Sempé's smile lights up one, a
New Yorker
cover adorns the other.
Some 300 people, intimate and anonymous, attended this Friday the funeral mass of the designer, creator with René Goscinny of Petit Nicolas.
“
You created Little Nicolas.
You made every childhood smile.
Today you have found yourselves I am sure, and I hear you laughing to tears
, ”said Anne Goscinny, the daughter of her friend, in a particularly moving tribute.
Anne Goscinny (left) alongside Martine Gossieaux (second from right), wife of Jean-Jacques Sempé.
ALAIN JOCARD / AFP
Jean-Jacques Sempé died on August 11, at the age of 89, in his second home near Bordeaux, the city of his childhood.
The cartoonist has marked several generations of readers of the press and his albums with the humor and poetry of his sketches.
He was one of the most prominent artists in the New Yorker, with a hundred covers between 1978 and 2019. For posterity, he remains above all the creator, with René Goscinny in 1959, from Petit Nicolas, schoolboy to tender heart whose adventures still enchant children and adults today.
Read alsoIn
Le Petit Nicolas,
all the wounds of its authors, Sempé and Goscinny
"
Sempé's drawing, with his smile and his elegance, made us see life with less despair
", celebrated his friend Benoît Duteurtre.
In a vibrant and beautiful tribute, the writer evoked his passion for music, drawing as well as the designer's propensity to reveal the beauty of the places he meticulously observed and sketched
"with his line, combining grace and lightness".
.
"
He was a craftsman who
spent hours at the desk, (...) faithful to the tradition of humorous drawing with his rhythmic gags
" but who also excelled "
in large images
" and "
could be a landscaper
".
Read alsoBenoît Duteurtre: “Sempé, the visionary”
The actor and director Jean-Michel Ribes, also celebrated a friend and his salutary spirit: “He
was a friend.
Then, it's someone who dug a little the emergency exits in a reality that suffocates us a little, with a delicious humor and at the same time more significant than we think.
He was someone with a deep lightness
, ”he told AFPTV.
Jean-Michel Ribes on his arrival at Sempé's funeral.
ALAIN JOCARD / AFP
Sempé was buried privately in the Montparnasse cemetery.
