New York City Sketches

Down memory lane with Babar the elephant

Laurent de Brunhoff, whose new book, Babar's Celesteville Games (Abrams, $18.95), is the 42nd in a series begun by his father, Jean de Brunhoff, in 1931, offers a simple explanation: "Time moves slowly" in Celesteville, the kingdom named for Babar's wife.

About to turn 86, de Brunhoff, who emigrated from France to the USA in 1985, is as courtly as Babar, the king of the elephants.

In his spacious Manhattan apartment and artist's studio, he notes with amusement, "I'm older than Babar!" and adds, "I'm a little slower than I used to be. But I think I'm in good shape." He begins each morning with 20 minutes of yoga.

Babar would approve. In Babar's Yoga for Elephants (2002), which reveals that cave drawings show that elephants invented yoga, Babar says all that stretching "helps us all to relax and draw strength from our inner elephant."

A few critics, mostly academics, have attacked Babar as a symbol of colonial oppression and racism, but few series have had such enduring appeal to young readers.

"Children of the age who like Babar, 3 to 6 or so, haven't changed," de Brunhoff says. "Teenagers are completely different than they were in the '40s, but not little kids. They still see a bit of themselves in Babar's adventures."

Babar's sleepy beginnings

It began in the summer of 1930, in a manor house outside Paris. De Brunhoff was 5 when his brother, Mathieu, 4, complained of a stomachache.

To entertain them, their mother, Cecile, made up a bedtime story about an unnamed but resilient young elephant who was playing in the jungle when a hunter shot his mother.

The elephant runs away to a town where he finds a lost purse that allows him to buy a set of fancy clothes before returning triumphantly to the jungle.

The next day, the boys repeated their story to their Papa, a painter, who decided to write it down, with embellishments and illustrations in watercolors. And he gave the elephant — dressed in a bowler hat, bright green suit and spats — a name.

"It's a good name, but I have no idea where it came from," says de Brunhoff in a musical French accent.

New York City sketch: embroidered!

Just finished embroidering a sketch made when we went up to the Top of the Rock, in New York City. We went there at sundown and saw the wonderful transition from daylight to nighttime. I wanted to convey that in my work and therefore chose a dark blue fabric as a background.

This, of course, posed many difficulties: I used tailor´s chalk for transfering, but it definitely is different from using a pencil. Not only it´s difficult to insert details, it also fades quickly.

Still, choosing an appropriate amount of daylight helped solving these issues and here it is!

It is part of a long-term, sort of mysterious project. Long-term because I take quite a long time doing it; mysterious because I might change my mind in the process and make it something else.

We´ll see!

The New York city sketches, and related pieces

The New York City sketches of Stephen Crane, and related pieces

New York city sketches of Stephen Crane

History of New York City, embracing an outline sketch of events from 1609 to 1830, and a full account of its development from 1830 to 1884

Sketch of the resources of the city of New York, With a view of its municipal government, population & &c. from the foundation of the city to the date of the latest statistical accounts