Can we still laugh about everything? It is a question that Phil Umbdenstock cannot answer with certainty, but one he keeps asking himself every time he draws.
The French cartoonist celebrates fifty years of drawing with a personal exhibition at the ECC: “50 Years with a Smile!” His first published cartoons indeed date back to the 1970s, which explains his choice of title. Yet the exhibition is not conceived as a retrospective.
The show brings together around one hundred humorous drawings, carefully selected from his body of work.
“The difficulty in setting up an exhibition of press cartoons is that current events are fleeting. Some drawings quickly lose their relevance, while others—often dealing with very serious subjects—turn out to be timeless. Some cartoons I made thirty years ago are still topical, and that is why I am showing a few of them here,” says Phil Umbdenstock.
Phil Umbdenstock (Wihr-au-Val, France) is self-taught and has been active as a press cartoonist since the 1970s. He worked for, among others, Dernières Nouvelles d’Alsace and La Nouvelle République. His style is direct, engaged, and often rock’n’roll. Beyond his press work, he also designed album covers for the French rock band Ange.
His work has earned him numerous awards, including the prestigious Crayon de porcelaine (2008 and 2025) and international distinctions in Italy, Bulgaria, and Germany.
Reviewers describe his cartoons as “an uppercut” and “a slap in the face”—humorous, yet always with a sharp eye on society.
