Artist Profile | Cartoon & Caricature

Patrick Chappatte

Patrick Chappatte (known simply as Chappatte), was born in 1967 in Karachi, Pakistan. He is a Lebanese-Swiss cartoonist who draws for “Le Temps”, “Neue Zürcher Zeitung” (Sunday edition), the German news magazine “Der Spiegel” and the “New York Times International”. His mother is Lebanese and his father is Swiss, he grew up in Singapore and Switzerland. He also worked as an illustrator for the “New York Times” and as a cartoonist for “Newsweek.” Many of his caricatures reflect Swiss and international news events, such as the 9/11 attacks and the rise of the Swiss People's Party. Chappatte currently lives between Los Angeles and Geneva. Patrick Chappatte draws a cartoon twice a week in the opinion section of The International New York Times, formerly known as the International Herald Tribune, where he has published his work since 2001. His cartoons appear on the site. newspaper website. Over the years, he has collaborated with editorial cartoonists in conflict-ridden countries with the goal of promoting dialogue through cartoons. These projects focused on Serbia, Ivory Coast, Lebanon, Kenya and Guatemala. He described the work in a TED Talk in 2010. In 2011 and 2015, he won the Overseas Press Club of America's Thomas Nast Award for Best Cartoons on International Affairs. He is the only non-American to have won this award. Since 1995, Chappatte has worked in graphic journalism, or comics journalism, a genre of reporting that uses the techniques of graphic novels. His stories covered the war in Gaza (2009), the slums of Nairobi (2010) and gang violence in Central America (2012). These reports were published in several newspapers, including the “New York Times”; which was made into a short animated documentary in 2011. Chappatte said the process of creating the documentary was both a personal and professional effort: "I have a Swiss father and a Lebanese mother, so I wanted to better understand the problems that the people of Lebanon still face, long after the fighting has stopped." , said. "I also wanted to use my craft as a cartoonist, my experience as a journalist, and my sense of satire to create a new kind of prism through which to view forgotten conflicts and a new technique to reveal the humanity behind the story."