Collection: Musée Tomi Ungerer/Centre international de l’Illustration, Strasbourg. © Tomi Ungerer/Diogenes Verlag AG, Zürich. The Drawing Center exhibition, curated by Claire Gilman, begins with Ungerer’s earliest doodles as a child growing up in Nazi-occupied Alsace, where under the nationalistic duress of war he first learned to be an outlaw. Delicately subversive, they are inscribed with a mature, swaggering humor that takes a subject as terrifying as Hitler and renders him a fool. (https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2015/01/30/all-in-one-an-interview-with-tomi-ungerer/) During a speech on January 17th Mr Ungerer provided a map through his volatile career. Born in Alsace in 1931, he grew up under Nazi occupation. Authorities noticed his talent and wanted to make him a propagandist for Hitler. He learned early on about living under gun fire, about the feelings that come from an audience with the Gestapo, and, when he included a mug of beer in a picture of Hitler (a noted teetotaller) and drew no censure, about the cartoonist’s joy in subtle sedition. (http://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2015/01/tomi-ungerer) The show opens with Ungerer’s works from age 7 to 13, when the Nazis occupied his hometown of Strasbourg. School assignments on display include a portrait of a Jewish man with thick, dark features and drawings of the red Nazi banner. “Zu klein!” (too small), a teacher comment reads, referring to Ungerer’s eight perfectly geometric swastikas. But even at that young age, Ungerer’s desire for peace and justice prevailed. He kept a secret French journal and drew images of Hitler saluting a cup of beer, along with scenes of skeletons and the horrors of the Nazi regime. "I remember I had to do a portrait of the Fuhrer, you know, giving a speech, and put a stein of beer on this thing. Well, the Fuhrer didn't drink, but still, you know, nobody ever objected. The thing is, no matter what tyranny, you can always get away, maybe not with murder, but with a few other things. And your mind is always free. Nobody can take away your mind. (http://www.npr.org/2013/07/01/196335794/from-kids-books-to-erotica-tomi-ungerers-far-out-life) (http://www.blouinartinfo.com/news/story/1073854/tomi-ungerer-returns-to-new-york)