Soon after the end of World War II, Laurent, who had become an artistic painter like his father and had also studied at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière, began work on a Babar book of his own. The first seven Babar albums were reprinted with millions of copies sold around the world. The French publishing house Hachette later bought the rights to the Babar series. Michel de Brunhoff arranged for the black and white drawings to be painted in color, with the then-thirteen-year-old Laurent helping with the work. He is buried in Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.Īfter Jean's death, his brother Michel de Brunhoff, who was the editor of the magazine Vogue Paris, oversaw the publication in book form of Jean's two last books, Babar and His Children and Babar and Father Christmas, both of which had been drawn in black and white for a British newspaper, The Daily Sketch. Due to the role she played in the genesis of the Babar story, some sources refer to her as the creator of the Babar story.Īfter the first book Histoire de Babar ( The Story of Babar), six more titles followed before Jean de Brunhoff died of tuberculosis at the age of 37. Originally, it was planned that the book's title page would describe the story as told by Jean and Cécile de Brunhoff. He made it into a picture book, with text, which was published by a family-owned publishing house, Le Jardin des Modes. The boys liked the story of the little elephant who left the jungle for a city resembling Paris, so much that they asked their father, a painter, to illustrate it. She was allegedly trying to comfort Mathieu, who was sick. The Babar books began as a bedtime story that Cécile de Brunhoff invented for their children, Mathieu and Laurent, when they were four and five years old, respectively.

In 1924 he married Cécile Sabouraud, a talented pianist, and they had two sons, Laurent and Mathieu, born in 19 a third son, Thierry, was born nine years later.

Afterwards, he decided to be a professional artist and studied painting at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Paris. Brunhoff joined the army and was sent to the front when World War I was almost ended. He attended Protestant schools, including the prestigious École Alsacienne. De Brunhoff was the fourth and youngest child of Maurice de Brunhoff, a publisher, and his wife Marguerite.

Babar and father christmas 1940