A retrospective exhibition about the work and life Art Spiegelman, author of graphic novels and recipient of the Grand Prize at the Angoulême graphic arts festival this year.If you don’t know Spiegelman’s masterpiece Maus, you don’t know very much about graphic novels. Now would be the moment to catch up!

This large exhibition is divided into six parts:

The underground – 70s San Francisco

Breakdowns, portrait of the artist as a young man

Maus – the centrepiece of the exhibition and Spiegelman’s work. Import family archive documents will also be presented.

Raw – a magazine and publisher created with Françoise Mouly, now artistic director of the New Yorker

In the shadow of no towers – a post-September 11 project

Illustration work – well-known and lesser-known work

photo by the Wexner Center used under cc licence

Together with Watchmen, it was Maus that transformed popular appreciation of graphic novels, showing their possibilities and subtlties. If you want to learn more about this visionary author, now’s the moment.

The Art Spiegelman exhibition is at the Pompidou Centre library (here) from 21st March – 21st May 2012

Open weekdays (except Tuesdays) from midday – 10pm, weekends from 11am – 10pm

Closed 1st May

Admission: free!

More info (in French): here