les collections

The Musée Tomi Ungerer is presenting the first solo exhibition by Anna Sommer in a French institution.

Winner in 2024 of the Max et Moritz prize, which honours the best German-language comics author, Swiss artist Anna Sommer has developed over the past decades a highly personal way of telling stories in images. From her collage portraits to short illustrated stories, via her comics and humorous prints, her works always feature an incision, which opens the door to humour, unease or another level of meaning.

Anna Sommer dissects human relationships, romantic conflicts, as well as our desires, roles and identities with the same precision as she uses a craft knife to cut paper and compose vast, colourful assemblages.

As part of this carte blanche, the artist has looked into the collection and works of Tomi Ungerer, which she brings into dialogue with her own work. Anna Sommer has also chosen several drawings by other artists who share narrative, formal or poetic links with her work: works by Tomi Ungerer and Borislav Sajtinac from the collection of the Musée Tomi Ungerer, by Marcelle Cahn and Käthe Kollwitz from the collection of the Musée d'Art moderne et contemporain, and by Toshusaï Sharaku and Kitagawa Utamaro from the Cabinet des Estampes et des Dessins. Through this resolutely subjective artistic gaze, the exhibition brings to light the many echoes that link the works across genres, styles and periods.