J.J. Grandville

Jean Ignace Isidore Gerard was a French artist, known by the pseudonym J.J. Grandville.  The name was derived from his grandparents, who used it as their professional stage name. Early in his career, he became known for his satirical caricatures of politicians, that were widely circulated in Parisian periodicals of his day. With the re-introduction of censorship of caricatures in 1935, he began to pursue a career as a book illustrator. He illustrated a number of classic works, that included Robinson Crusoe and Gulliver's Travels, but critically, his defining moment was the 1944 surrealistic Un Autre Monde, that was one of the leading progenitors of the surrealists movement of the 1920's. Witty, satirical, and way ahead of it's time, Un Autre Monde inspired an entire generation of surrealists, including Andre Beton. His illustrations brought to life inanimate objects, and metamorphosized animals and objects  into fantastic creatures that heavily influenced illustrator John Tenniel's,  Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.