Biography

Georges David Wolinski (28 June 1934 – 7 January 2015) was a French cartoonist and comics writer. He was killed on 7 January 2015 in a terrorist attack on Charlie Hebdo along with other staff.

Georges David Wolinski was born on 28 June 1934 in Tunis, French Tunisia to Jewish parents, Lola Bembaron and Siegfried Wolinski. His father, who was from Poland, was murdered in 1936 when Wolinski was two years old. His mother was a Tunisian of Italian Jewish descent. He moved to metropolitan France in 1945 shortly after World War II. He started studying architecture in Paris and following his graduation he began cartooning.

Wolinski began cartooning for Rustica in 1958, and started drawing political cartoons in 1960. Three years later, in 1961, he started contributing political and erotic cartoons and comic strips to the satirical monthly Hara-Kiri.

During the student revolts of May 1968, Wolinski co-founded the satirical magazine L'Enragé with Jean-Jacques Pauvert and Siné. He served as the editor-in-chief of Hara-Kiri from 1961 to 1970. In the early 1970s, Wolinski collaborated with the comics artist Georges Pichard to create Paulette which appeared in Charlie Mensuel and provoked reactions in France during its publication. Wolinski's work appeared in the daily newspaper Libération, the weekly Paris-Match, L'Écho des savanes and Charlie Hebdo.

In 2005, he was the recipient of the Grand Prix de la ville d'Angoulême at the Angoulême Festival. The same year he was also awarded the Legion of Honour.

Wolinski was responsible for the design of the livery of several art cars that raced in various sportscar championships and in the Le Mans 24 Hours.

After the loss of his first wife, Jacqueline Saba, in 1966, in a car accident, he married, in 1972, Maryse Wolinski.

Along with seven of his colleagues, two police officers, and two other people, Wolinski was killed on 7 January 2015 in the Charlie Hebdo shooting when armed terrorists stormed the Charlie Hebdo newspaper offices in Paris.

The asteroid 293499 Wolinski was named in his memory on 22 February 2016 by its discoverer Jean-Claude Merlin.

Source: Article "Georges Wolinski" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.