Plantu

Jean Plantureux (born March 23, 1951, in Paris), who goes by the professional name Plantu, is a French cartoonist specializing in political satire. His work has regularly appeared in the French newspaper Le Monde since 1972.

Jean Plantureux received his Baccalaureate from Lycée Henri-IV in 1969. Though he initially intended to pursue the study of medicine, he soon gave this up and moved to Brussels, where he enrolled in drawing courses at the École Saint-Luc.

Plantu returned to Paris and attempted to sell his cartoons to the French daily newspapers. He was hired by Bernard Lauzanne of Le Monde and his first cartoon, about the Vietnam War, was published on October 1, 1972. In 1974, Claude Julien, then-director of Le Monde Diplomatique, also began publishing Plantu's drawings.

In 1980 Plantu began to work with Le Journal Phosphore, a relationship which would continue until 1986. In 1982, André Laurens and Claude Lamotte, respectively the director and editor in chief of Le Monde, asked him to begin drawing cartoons for the Sunday edition of the newspaper. In September 1987, Plantu appeared on the television show Droit de Réponse, with Michel Polac, on TF1.

In 1985, the head of Le Monde, André Fontaine, started to publish Plantu's cartoons daily, saying that this would return political satire back to its former standing as a French tradition.

In 1988 Plantu received the Mumm prize for his cartoon "Gordji chez le juge", followed by a prix de l'humour noir in 1989. In 1991, Plantu began to publish a comic in the weekly magazine L'Express, which allotted him its entire third page every week.

In 1991 Plantu met Yasser Arafat during a showing of his cartoons in Tunis. Arafat liked Plantu's cartoons so much that he drew a Star of David on a Plantu cartoon, colored it in and signed it. The following year, Plantu traveled to Israel and met Shimon Peres, whom he convinced to sign the cartoon as well. This was the first time that signatures from both the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Israeli government had been affixed to the same document.

Le Monde changed its methodology in 1995, causing Plantu to lose control over the subject matter of his cartoons. In 1996, Plantu had a showing of his cartoons and sculptures at the Cour de cassation (French Supreme Court) in Paris. Later that year he received the Spanish Gat Perich (International Caricature Prize). Some of his drawings and sculptures were auctioned at the Hôtel Drouot in Paris, and he received exposure in Argentina through the Alliance Française of Buenos Aires.

In 1997 Plantu opened a gallery in Khartoum, Sudan. In Budapest, the president of the Hungary, Árpád Göncz, inaugurated an exhibit of Plantu and Gabor Papai. He also opened a new gallery at the French Arts centre of Mexico City. Finally, a collection of his work was exhibited at CRAC in Valence, France. ...

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