Summer Exhibition of self-portraits

I wish I could make it to haute-Provence for this summer show of Ronald's self-portraits in the village where he lived. The town also unveiled a memorial plaque above the front (back? -I was never sure!) door of his home.  His daughter Kate was there to represent the Searle family.

It looks like the exhibition has self-portraits from across Ronald's whole life-a testament to how long he lived! I've gathered many of them in this section.

Dragons

This cropped up on Twitter- E. Nesbit’s 'Book Of Dragons'. I'm unfamiliar with this book but it looks great and has been in print for a century! I'm not sure which edition features these wonderful Searle dragons but it looks like early Searle-perhaps late forties?

A similar dragon design appeared in this illustration for a Patrick Campbell story in Lilliput magazine.

This next one appeared in 'Haven't We Met Before Somewhere?' (1966)

A much later design featured in this 1982 drawing for a Lloyds Bank Brochure. 

#3 'Coping With the Unexpected in Farming' 1982

Menu

Restaurants and private clubs commissioned Searle to illustrate their menus, presumably to lend them an air of class or an ironic wink sending up their own stuffiness.

'Savage Club Ladies Night'

Published in Graphis #44 1952

Omar Khayyam Club menu 1955

Restaurant des Beaux Arts, St. Germaine, Paris

(see the post on the restaurant here)

Searle depicted the ceremonial entrance of the sommelier countless times over the years, skewering their pomp & circumstance with each drawing.

A private commission for the 'Chapitre de L'Equinoxe' the 413 Chapitre de la confrerie des chevaliers du tastevin. The dinner event marked the 50th anniversary year of the baptisme de l'Escorteur Rapide 'LE BOURGUIGNON" - a battleship!

Fernandel

Searle and his first wife, Kaye Webb, met famous French vaudevillian Fernandel on their first trip to Paris. A portait dated 29th May 1950 appeared in their 'Paris Sketchbook'.

 In 1958 Searle would again capture the actor for Punch magazine's review column of Parisian Theatre

A card with a sketch by Searle and inscribed by Fernandel dated 30th October 1958

Punch theatre critic, Eric Keown, wrote 'Fernandel is fifty, his real name Fernand Desire Constandin.  He was born in Marseilles, where his father sang in cafes. . . At twenty he went to Paris to appear at a music-hall, and was discovered overnight.  Now he is the idol of France, and his vast, friendly smile warms the armies of his fans throughout Europe and America . . . His enormous brown eyes, of surpassing honesty, look right into you while he is talking.  He thinks before he speaks, and then speech is reinforced by a running commentary of natural mime.  He has beautiful hands.'

Andre Francois

Searle was close to and admired the art of many of his contemporaries but none more so than Andre Francois. He even published a book on Francois' art through his Perpetua publishing house 'Andre Francois: The Biting Eye' (1960).  Searle visited the Romanian émigré at his studio in France and took a series of photographs of the artist and his studio home. I would place these photos around the early 1970s and I believe this is the studio that tragically burnt down towards the end of Francois' life.

 In his ever meticulous manner Searle notes the top two pictures are close-ups of the bottom. He highlights the playful trompe-l'œil shelves.

Francois' style was generally less sophisticated than Searle's in terms of draughtsmanship but that was part of the success of his visual humour. Francois sometimes drew in a more intricate Searle style.

Conversely Searle's work in the 1960s approached the experimental nature of Francois', especially the expressionistic 'Anatomis & Decapitations' series and 'Baron Munchausen'.

Kate Searle, the artist's daughter, kept an autograph book as a child and collected signatures and doodles from her father's friends including this one by Francois.