“Bicycling, that’s the joy of my life,” says Jean-Jacques Sempé, the artist who painted this week’s cover, “Tiny Dancers.” “For thirty years, I went around everywhere on my bicycle. No matter the destination, rain or shine, I’d go there on my bike. Even if I was going to a fancy event, I’d show up in my tux in ankle straps, rain-drenched but happy.”
Sempé, who’s nearing eighty-two and still recovering from a stroke that he suffered while skiing a few years back, no longer gets around on a bike. “Just getting in and out of a car is an adventure these days,” he says, still with good cheer. But when the Monnaie de Paris asked him recently to create coins to be issued in 2014 for “Liberté,” “Égalité,” and “Fraternité,” he designed all three with a bicycle as the central element.
Here’s a slide show of Sempé’s past New Yorker covers featuring bicycles:
May 7, 1979, by J. J. Sempé.
August 1, 1983, by J. J. Sempé.
August 11, 1986, by J. J. Sempé.
“Tour de France,” by J. J. Sempé, July 12, 1999.
“A Bicyclist on His Way to Brooklyn,” by J. J. Sempé, December 4, 2000.
“Early Morning Downtown,” by J. J. Sempé, May 20, 2002.
“Fresh Produce,” by J. J. Sempé, July 9 & 16, 2007.
“The Joys and Torments of Solitude,” by J. J. Sempé, August 2, 2010.
“On His Way,” by J. J. Sempé, March 21, 2011.
