Detail of Tintin en Amérique by Hergé (aka Georges Remi). Indian ink and gouache on paper for the cover of the 1942 edition.
The original drawing for the cover of the 1942 edition of Tintin in America is the headline item in Artcurial’s three sales which focus on comic strips and bandes dessinées.
With an estimate of €2.2 to €3.2 million ($2.3 - $3.4 million), the cover is featured in auction The World of Hergé, Tintin’s creator. Hergé and his publisher Casterman decided to switch to colour for the Tintin albums in 1942. Marketed in October 1942, this edition of Tintin en Amérique is the final one printed in black and white.
Tintin in America was the third in the Tintin series, first published in 1932 with a cover illustration depicting Tintin sitting on a rock with Snowy next to him. For the third edition in 1937, this was replaced with one of Tintin riding a horse. The drawing now on sale is the original for the cover of the 1942 edition, then reused for the 1946 first colour edition and in use ever since.
The Tintin auction also features greeting cards, letters, and rough drafts of album illustrations by Hergé, plus models of some of the ships which feature in the stories including the Unicorn, Sirius, and Karaboujan.
There is also a gouache on paper for the 1972 animated film Tintin and the Lake of Sharks (Tintin et le lac aux requins) of the villa in moonlight, from an original screenplay by Greg.
The other sales feature the Belgian artist Yslaire in De Hislaire to Yslaire alongside around 100 works by Albert Uderzo (the co-creator of Asterix the Gaul), Mœbius, Jean Graton, and Hugo Pratt. Hislaire – who also wrote under the names Yslaire, Sylaire, and iSlaire – is described by Artcurial as, “a storyteller of the unconscious, a graphic psychiatrist, a tracker of emotions and an explorer of feelings.”
All sales take place in Paris on February 10, 2023.
