Searle the art instructor

 A fascinating item at auction recently reveals Searle to be a mentor to a fellow artist while incarcerated in Changi Gaol by the Japanese in WWII. I'd never heard of him teaching in this capacity before - it's definitely his hand-writing - but he did give me pointers on sketching when I met him and showed him my sketchbooks.

Searle's own art training was cut short when he enlisted. On the long voyage by sea to Singapore he drew what he encountered - Polish sailors, Mombasa, India and kept drawing as a prisoner. He turned his incarceration into a kind of art school experience, documenting the incidents in the camp, sketching caricatures of fellow inmates and designing theater play backdrops and programs, Christmas cards and also singular 'magazines' that were disseminated between the men.

'Searle (Ronald) British Cartoonist (1920-2011) and Cotterell (Thomas George). A two sided als in blue ink from Searle to Cotterell dated June 14 1945 from Changi Gaol (Singapore) in which he artistically criticises Cotterell's portrait of his wife (watercolour profile on paper 135 x 115mm signed and dated verso '45). Both laminated for preservation, with transcripts.

Note: Both men were Japanese Prisoners of War and were held at Changi Gaol '

Written in June 1945 only months before the end of the war Searle had returned to Changi from his horrific stint up the Malay peninsula on the Death Railway. He couches the critique with a modest take-down of his own abilities then the feedback is necessarily frank and honest.

'The Female Approach' 1949

Original cover art.

 

Saintly

 A St. Trinians piece from an old Chris Beetles catalogue that I don't think I'd ever seen. 

The Admiral and the Con Man

The art director at The New Yorker knew Searle was the right illustrator for this story! (from 2002)

The Mythical Fortune That Fuelled America’s Greatest Fraud

Posing as a British lord, Oscar Hartzell convinced thousands of Americans that they could get a piece of the Sir Francis Drake estate—a multibillion-dollar inheritance that didn’t exist.

 

Searle's influence

The shadow Ronald Searle's style casts over other cartoonists is pervasive. It was said once you've seen his style it's hard to draw any other way. From Mad Magazine's Mort Drucker and Jack Davis to the Disney artists on '101 Dalmatians' and the character design on Pixar's 'Soul' his influence can be detected. Contemporary cartoonists and illustrators such as Peter De Seve, Nick Galifiniakis and Richard Thompson have all publicly doffed their caps to the master.

Here's an Arnold Roth with commentary by Jules Feiffer. Using a cat's tail asa brush may be alluding to the story of Searle doing that as a POW:  a couple of kittens had wandered into Changi gaol and Searle apparently made use of the tails after they were eaten! If Roth had read that anecdote in Searle's book 'To The Kwai and Back' he certainly made a less gruesome gag out of it!

Feiffer commentary: "Arnold had an early period in which he was living in England, and he was trying to be Ronald Searle. And this is very Searle looking. When he got rid of trying to be Searle, he became one of the most original and interesting artist in the business and he remains underappreciated. Arnold is brilliant. He has done covers for The New Yorker and his artwork has appeared in TV Guide, Sports Illustrated and Esquire. He was part of the Harvey Kurtzman crew and his cartoons and illustrations were in the magazines Harvey edited. Arnold has never gotten the attention he deserves. I love this work even if this is still him being very Ronald Searlish. Arnold, over the years, has quietly become one of our most original and evocative cartoonists. And he is blessed with a great wife, Caroline."

Germany

The British caricaturist Ronald Searle was on a four day visit of Germany on invitiation of SDR. Interview with Ronald Searle. (August 26th 1959)

King Edward VII

 Spectacular drawing for HOLIDAY magazine, 1958.

Paris Sketchbook (1950)

 

Original ed. 1950. US ed. 1957

'Pont Neuf'

'Assemblée Nationale'

'Oscar Wilde's Tomb, Père-Lachaise Cemetery'

'St. Paul'

'Montmartre'

'Bookseller, Rive gauche'

'Place Dauphine'

This stunning piece is not in the 'Paris Sketchbook' it appeared later in 'Holiday' magazine I believe.