I remember Christmas they always, or maybe summer, they always come to Paris and I showed them the painting I did and I said, “Oh, I have an idea where maybe I can use this forest to make Hansel and Gretel.” Francoise liked it so much, she said, “Oh yes, it’s a good idea to show this.” And so, after a week I started to make this forest, but I put inside the characters. I didn’t want to make a little illustration like that for an exhibition. So I was on this trip and then Francoise Mouly asked me make Hansel and Gretel drawings for an exhibition at the Metropolitan (Opera House) and I didn’t want to make a normal illustration with a crayon and color. I was really fascinated by this idea to make the deepness with the light, the light that comes inside the forest. Sometimes the drawing was so deep, so black, that it was completely abstract. And little by little, these images became more and more bigger. There was no planning. It’s always a work of improvisation with the space and with the trees. The organization of this space with this depth in this black. From this dimension I started to make it bigger and had the idea to make the forest with these brush forms and to give it depth. But always focused on the roots and trees. So I started to make a big landscape drawing of Patagonia. Little by little, when I returned to Paris, the subject of the landscape took hold of me more and more. Very little pieces of paper and very quick. And when I returned to the hotel, I started to make with a brush this kind of form with very dramatic trees.

Very strange forms and atmospheric and it was very powerful to walk around these woods. A friend and I went on a long walk in the forest and the mountains and the trees were very, very dramatic. Lorenzo Mattotti: It started 10 years ago, more or less, after a trip to Patagonia. I wondered what the process was to come to that as opposed to rendering it in a series of lines or plains. I sat down with Mattotti in the Toon Books New York office (aka Francoise Mouly and Art Spiegelman's living room) for a chat about his latest book, Italian design, and his early influences.ĭan Nadel: The first thing that struck me about this book is that usually I see your work painted or in pastel, or thin-lined, and Hansel & Gretel is, as you know, much more brush-oriented and much more abstract than usual.

He is also a prolific illustrator for The New Yorker and Vogue. Hyde, and most recently the Toon Books release, Hansel & Gretel, with text by Neil Gaiman. Italian-born, Paris-based artist Lorenzo Mattotti has published numerous books, including a version of The Raven with Lou Reed, Dr. Features Into the Forest with Lorenzo Mattotti

Hansel and gretel lorenzo mattotti