The Getaway

Technically, Ahlberg is in full control, he paints narrowly and precisely to the smallest detail; Nevertheless, Tintin appears perfectly cartoonish and sincere awkward in the adult universe. Ahlberg simply melts two completely different values ​​together without overconstructing it.

If the toys Ole Ahlberg often places in his pictures are a solid symbol of innocence, then it’s a different matter when it comes to the figure of Tintin, who has become a kind of trademark for the artist. For Tintin is a completely fictitious person. Plus he’s a very special type, one where you don’t find even an inkling of a love life in any of the comics. With the exception of the opera-singing, bosomy Milanese nightingale, Bianca Castafiore, women are by and large missing from Tintin’s universe. Even the heavily drinking and constantly cursing Captain Haddock shies terrifyingly away from Castafiore’s advances, which are more a publicity stunt than a real declaration of love. Ole Ahlberg places this quite unusually virtuous comic strip figure in situations where he is confronted with very corporeal and scantily clad earthy women. With great wonder, or should we say shock, Tintin stares at the forbidden fruit. His facial expressions, often taken from episodes in actual comics, reveal that all this eroticism is completely alien to him. As though it came from another planet. Ole Ahlberg, leaving no room for doubt, emphasizes that Tintin is a fictitious person by depicting him using Herges’ sharp, black contours in contrast to the rest of the paintings clair obscure.

Before the popular breakthrough, Ole Ahlberg was best known as (80er) surrealist, and as part of the art association "Pas Partout" he already made strong works at the time - and they were hard to get hold of. Today you have to think and act quickly if you want to own one of the new original works.