Peter De Sève

The American artist tells Gary Evans why drawing well is like telling a good joke

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Peter de Sève, aged 16, a student at Parsons school of art and design, walks through Greenwich Village to the corner of Bleecker and Macdougal Streets. It’s snowing. He finds a table in Café Figaro, the New York coffeehouse whose past regulars include Bob Dylan, Lenny Bruce and Jack Kerouac, where he drinks cappuccinos and draws in his sketchbook.

With his drawings, Peter’s trying to impress people – friends, girls too. And it’s during these quiet afternoons that he starts to understand what it means to be illustrator, and exactly what it is an illustration is supposed to do.

“It was a magical time,” the artist says. “It was 1977 when I started Parsons. For a kid from Long Island, living away from home for the first time, it couldn’t have been more exciting. The punk scene was in full swing – yet there was still a faint whiff of the folk scene down on Bleecker Street. There were hardcore punks and stoned hippies all over the place, and that’s where friends and I spent most of our free time. We’d walk through the snow and hunker down at the Café Figaro.

“I just loved to draw things that would amuse myself and other people. That’s kind of the job of an illustrator in a nutshell, isn’t it? It’s not only about pleasing yourself but you have to communicate to and entertain an audience. Every drawing is an opportunity to make someone feel something specific and to do it in the cleverest, most economical way possible. I’ve always loved that challenge. I think I was hard-wired to be an illustrator from birth.”