Bay of Pigs, 1961. By Tomi Ungerer. Photo: M. Bertola/N.Fussler

In more contemporary times, cartoonists like Saul Steinberg dissected modern life and its foibles with a few succinct and graceful lines, joyfully critical of the world around them. Tomi Ungerer is another.

To parents, Ungerer is well-known. His family of pigs, the Mellops, has long delighted children with their adventures, as have the characters in his later books "The Three Robbers," "No Kiss for Mother," "Flix," "Otto" and "Moon Man." As Maurice Sendak once said of "Moon Man": "It is pertinent, contemporary, coolly acid in tone, and altogether magical. Of course, since it's Ungerer, it is also very funny. ... Tomi influenced everybody."

What is less acknowledged, however, are Ungerer's cartoons and illustrations, or, more accurately, the range of his cartoons and illustrations. That is sure to change. "Tomi Ungerer and the Human Comedy" at the Boston Public Library, accompanied by cases filled with his children books, is a finely edited survey of one of 20 th century's greatest illustrators and satirists -- on view at a time when the Danish debacle has thrust such work back into the spotlight. That and the children books may draw viewers into the show, but Ungerer's artistic inventiveness is what they will take away with them.

Born in Strasbourg in 1931, Ungerer later witnessed World War II first hand, leaving him with a bitter dislike of war. In 1956, like many emigrants, he left Europe bound for New York with a few bucks in his pocket and some drawings under his arm. His plan: to become the next Steinberg. Within a year his first book, "The Mellops Go Flying," was published to huge acclaim. From there, Ungerer went on to produce more children's books, adult picture books and illustrations for such publications as "The New Yorker" and "The Village Voice" as well as images for advertising campaigns.

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In the exhibition the original drawings for these works, along with more cases of the artist's books are laid out in chronological order, allowing viewers to follow Ungerer's different techniques and ingenious mining of artistic styles. Like pulling rabbits out of hat, Ungerer's bags of tricks borrow from Dadaist collage, Surrealist irrationalities and Expressionist grotesques without even a flinch. His spare imagery remains steadfastly self-assured, his tone at turns whimsical, his visual puns always clever.

His economy of line and playful wit is apparent from his early picture book "Horrible: An Account of Sad Achievements of Progress." Using magazine cutouts to flesh out his drawings, such as his use of a roasted chicken breast to create a raincoat for a bird-like woman, he creates absurd and memorable fissions. Similarly in another drawing, a cutout picture of a nude, held aloft by putti, looks like it could be a landing pad for a cartoon plane. The only other image in this drawing is the moon; and the man in it appears to looking down on the scene as if thinking "I can't believe this is happening" -- exactly what we are thinking.

The drawings for "The Party" and "The New Yorker" are images more reminiscent of Steinberg. The earlier collage elements have been transformed into patterns and textures, but Ungerer's searing critique of modern life remains. Turning old moneyed doyennes of the Hamptons into pinched tuxedo-ed letches and cat-eyed socialites, he does such things as present a portrait caricature, Miss Elmira Cattarh, literally spitting barbs out of her mouth. In many others, the men appear prune-faced and propped up; the women's stylish dresses too tight and frequently revealing rude appendages, befitting of such made up names as Miss Flannery Rump and Miss Dana Hogpuss Hohldeck.

Touches of endearment, however, also make an appearance in his work, as in a picture of small boat carrying a fire engine, racing out to douse the burning flame of the Statute of Liberty's torch.

Similarly, Ungerer's posters "Expect the Unexpected" for "The Village Voice" have a certain poignancy along with a huge dose of absurdity as when a fisherman, standing in water, holds his fish like a suitcase, which is shown moments away from swallowing the Yellow Submarine.

Perhaps, most memorable are Ungerer's drawings for an anti-depressant drug campaign Symptomatics. In these, visual puns abound, as in the picture of a dotty housewife watering her flower lampshade instead of the flowers on the table; or another drawing of a woman in bed, with curlers both on her head and used as tracks for an army of tanks, poised for attack. Then there are Ungerer's updated versions of the "Dance Macabre, Rigor Mortis" in which lewdness dances arm in arm with death.

As great as it is to see these original drawings with all the character of Ungerer's exquisite line held in tact, the books reveal yet another side of his creativity -- his attention to layout. In "The Underground Sketchbook of Tomi Ungerer," the left page shows a soldier holding a coffin. On the facing page is a machine gun. The horror of the image becomes apparent exactly where the viewer's eye is drawn, to the gun: its magazine is made out of small men, the shooting bullets are their heads, the spent casings are their headless bodies. With this image, Ungerer sadly sums up the human cost of wars.

In this work, as in all others, Ungerer's talents epitomize a graphic intelligence that Photoshop's special effects can never equal. Ungerer is as serious a draftsman as he is a cartoonist and illustrator. Although never a part of any artistic movement or style, his satiric pictures -- impressed with the bite of reality -- brilliantly sum up our age's absurd greed, hapless wanderings, and the ever-present threat of madness.

"Tomi Ungerer and the Human Comedy" is on view at the Boston Public Library through March 31, 2006.

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