Ronald Searle Tribute

Original for sale on eBay

2012-01-30T18:15:00.002Z

An original Searle drawing is up for sale on eBay-it's a portrait of US comedienne Phyllis Diller-undated but Stephen Nadler speculates on its origin here.

It's a vibrant piece, large format but wasn't used as a cover image. It's listed at $4500 but the dealer is willing to let it go for $4000. If you buy it tell them I sent you !

Mini exhibition tribute

2012-01-26T02:10:00.002Z

The Works on Paper Fair will feature a handful of original Searles on loan from the Cartoon Museum. It's always worth seeing Searle's work up close and they have one of my favourites -

'Honolulu' 1965 Holiday Magazine

Cartoon Museum collection © Copyright the estate of Ronald Searle
and the Sayle Literary Agency.

To be exhibited as part of a Ronald Searle tribute exhibition at the Watercolours + Works on Paper Fair 2 - 5 February 2012, at the Science Museum London. (Thanks to Richerd Hodgson)

POW days

2012-01-13T23:32:00.103Z

Several remarkable resources have recently become available giving insight into Searle's Army days and his incarceration as a POW.
Britain At War has this article with links to some of Searle's POW sketches. Returning from the war in 1945 Searle was profiled in Reynolds News and Sunday Citizen.

The Imperial War Museum, London has dozens of drawings viewable online here. It seems the entire sketchbook of Searle's convoluted passage to the Far East is included on the IWM website. It illuminates daily life during a prolonged voyage across the Atlantic from Scotland to Halifax, down to South America, around Africa en route to Singapore.

It's remarkable to see in these drawings all the tics and visual cues that would later become indicative of Searle's mature style. The combination of mark-making; scratchy lines and smudging anchored by bold outlines; graphic stylisation of facial features, long limbed figures, architectural studies with character, tonal shading on ONE side of a figure etc.

Contributor Kevin O'Brien sent in this shot he took in the IWM of Searle's prison camp drawing kit.

The Victoria State Library, Australia has put online the Lofty Cannon Collection. The Aussie POW was a great friend to Searle at his lowest ebb in the prison camp and he features in several of these drawings given to him after the war.

Whilst incarcerated in Changi the prisoners kept their spirits up and their minds occupied by putting on shows to which Searle contributed sets. Des Bettany (portrayed here by Searle) was a fellow artistically inclined inmate who collaborated with Searle. See their elaborate programmes and read further at a website devoted to his POW artwork here.

Sonia Kretschmar writes about 'The Survivor' the magazine Searle conributed to with a "print order of five and a readership of fifty thousand" in Changi prison. She has posted scans from the Royal College of Art's ARK magazine with an article on Searle the survivor. See it here

Chris Beetles Gallery, London exhibited this poster for a Changi production of Shaw's 'Pygmalion'.

Inscribed 'completed for Ronald Pantling 18 years after all this!' retrospectively dated 1963. Further signed by members of the cast and production team.

(Executed in Changi Gaol 1945 on reverse of a list of prisoners of war.)

This is Gloucestershire reports on Syd Tavender, a fellow former POW of Searle's.

'The pair met when working in the gardens of Singapore, Mr Tavender said, and were in terrible physical shape after enduring horrific conditions when forced to work on the Burma to Thailand railway.

Mr Tavender, who lives in Up Hatherley, said: "When we were working the gardens, having come down from Burma, we were wrecks. We were just skin and bone.

"He was still drawing then. I knew him reasonably well. I used to talk to him when we were doing the gardening. . . "

The Churchill College 2010 newsletter magazine carried this article on Canon Noel Duckworth- a much respected figure amongst the inmates of Changi.

The article quotes a letter from Searle and publishes a drawing of Duckworth by Searle, signed by other POWs.

Further reading :

Changi Gaol Part 1

Changi Gaol Part 2

Changi Gaol Part 3
POW

Call for entries

2012-01-11T18:29:00.012Z

I've recently had some very interesting contributions from readers and in the wake of Mr Searle's death the site has seen increased traffic which may throw up more rarities. Contributions are always welcome so if anyone out there has any rare Searle-iana that they think would add to this site please contact me at the email address in my Blogger profile. The Private Collections section has contributions from several readers already.

Before Christmas Yak El-Droubie contacted me with some terrific shots taken by Douglas Webb during the production of Wendy Toye's 'The King's Breakfast'. I've added them to the 'King's Breakfast' section

Nicholas S. sent in a very lovely example of early Searle, circa 1947, originally made for an autograph hunter. It shows the artist portrayed by one of his darling schoolgirl creations.

In this drawing from the fifties the artist gets his own back on his diabolical creations.

(From the CartoonBooks Club)

Also if there are any cartoonists who would like to contribute tribute drawings I'd be happy to feature them here on the Hommage section of Perpetua. My cartoonist pals Elliot Elam and Elliot Cowan have already posted their versions of that naughty schoolboy Molesworth on their respective blogs.

Elliot Elam

Elliot Cowan

Caricaturist extraordinaire Jonathan Cusick has made this lovely portrait

Hullo clouds, hullo sky. . .

2012-01-03T12:21:00.061Z

Photograph: Eamonn McCabe/Guardian

The inevitable day has come-I'm deeply saddened to report the death of Ronald Searle. He passed away peacefully in his sleep on Friday 30th December, 2011. Since the death last summer of his wife Monica, his health declined and now Mr and Mrs Mole are together again.
It was a joy and a privilege to have known the Searles-I'll write a full tribute soon . . .

The media have some touching tributes:
Leif Peng
Brad Holland
Making Great Illustration
Le Monde
The Economist
Deja View
Scotiana
Ragged Claws
Financial Times
The Lancet
MATT in the Telegraph
Quentin Blake
Padraig Rooney
Cambridge News
Spectator
Comics Journal
The Last Word
ECC
Sonia Kretschmar
Steven Heller
ZMKC
The Australian
New Yorker
ArtScene
Daily Beast
Bridget Strevens-Marzo
Brian Sibley
AOI
Creative Review
New Humanist
Eye Magazine
The Independent Obituary
Spitalfields Life
The mermaid and the schoolgirl
Radio Times
Richard Thompson
NY Times
John Coulthart
The Sun
Channel 4 News Report
Searle's biographer Russell Davies
Searle's biographer Russell Davies
Harry Mount in the Daily Mail
Gerald Scarfe
Steve Bell on The World.org
Ralph Steadman & Posy Simmonds on Front Row
The Telegraph
Harry Mount in The Telegraph
Telegraph obituary
Guardian Books
Guardian obituary
The Mirror
Daily Mail
Berliner Morgenpost
BBC obituary
Martin Rowson
Cartoon Brew
Michael Greenwood's best meal ever!
Michael Greenwood in the Mirror
The Independent
The Express

Justin Creedy Smith, akg-images / Newscom

©Louis Monier:Rue des ArchivesMarch99

©Louis Monier

From a comment in the Guardian:

Glynyfran

4 January 2012 10:01AM

"Let me add a personal story to all these tributes. In 1956 my wife and I attended the Ideal Home Exhibition, and Ronald Searle was there sitting and drawing cartoons of whatever was going on. I naively asked him how he gained his inspirations, he turned to me and said, 'just look around you'. I've never forgotten that remark, or the valuable advice it proved to be in my own life.

We all owe him a debt of gratitude for the pleasure he gave to so many people, pleasure that will outlast his life here as we continue to enjoy his many creations."

Christmas Update

2011-12-19T23:56:00.010Z

Stephen Nadler blogs about a piece of personal Searle art here
Searle fans in L.A. should see the Searle retrospective exhibition at Gallery Nucleus through January 29th. I've updated the following sections:
New Yorker Covers
Book covers
Lemon Hart Rum
Toujours Provence
New Yorker Editorial
Theatre Design

Ronald Searle is profiled in Making Great Illustration, a collection of interviews with todays' top illustrators featuring amongst others Ralph Steadman, Quentin Blake, Dave McKean and Pete Fowler.
A perfect Christmas gift for illustration fans-buy it on Amazon.

Last year Searle contributed to the 'Inspired by Soanes' exhibition at the Sir John Soanes Museum, London. See all the artwork here

What Book?

2011-11-30T09:14:00.008Z

... ARE YOU READING NOW?

I am reading What Am I Still Doing Here? by Roger Lewis.

This is not because I designed the jacket (without seeing any text), but because it is a wild saga of witty, thought-provoking, intelligent ramblings - and it's frequently spendidly vulgar to boot.

... WOULD YOU TAKE TO A DESERT ISLAND?

I would take Jenny Uglow's extraordinarily fascinating biography William Hogarth: A Life And A World. It took me over a year to read it the first time. I'd happily enjoy repeating that, and then get off the island, thanks very much.

... GAVE YOU THE READING BUG?

In the English classes of our small elementatary school, we were read Dickens. I was about 12 and totally bowled over by his visions and imagination.

So I would cycle off to the local town lending library, stuff my bicyle basket with the rest of Dickens and wallow.

And I've never regretted it.

... LEFT YOU COLD?

I can't say that I have read - knowingly - a book that left me cold. But, if I may twist the question, I recently bought a book that freezes to the bone. The Eichmann Trial by Deborah Lipstadt.

I attended that trial and spent a month in the courtroom regarding the man to whom a few millions of killings during World War II were but figures in his notebook.

From The Daily Mail

Graphis

2011-11-06T02:05:00.016Z

International design journal Graphis magazine featured Searle's work on several occasions over the years.

Its first feature on Searle profiled the artist in 1948 with this lavish 6 page spread. Exposure such as this must have helped Searle establish his reputation in the years after WWII.

Wonderfully loose St. Trinians sketch on the right.

(Courtesy of Full Table.com)

In 1958 issue 80 printed an 11 page spread on Searle and his work

In 1980 issue 212 profiled Searle again with text by Dr. Alexander Duckers

In 1969 the magazine invited prominent graphic artists and illustrators to celebrate its 25th anniversary. Gene Gable looks back at that issue at Creative Pro.com

Searle contributed several spectacular covers:

Issue 80 A frightening Picassoesque female artist

Issue 129 (1967) Stuck for an idea Searle creates a cover from the very problem of 'artists' block'!

Issue 169

What am I still doing here?

2011-10-28T18:07:00.003+01:00

Stephen Nadler has blogged about Searle's cover artwork for Roger Lewis' 'What Am I Still Doing Here?'

Mr Lewis was fortunate to keep the artwork and had it and the rough framed

Goodbye Mrs Mole

2011-10-16T04:45:00.006+01:00

I was saddened over the summer to hear that Ronald Searle's wife and soulmate of 50 years, Monica, passed away. I had the great privilege of meeting Monica on several occasions and remain ever grateful for having the chance to spend time with a lady of great charm and class. The Daily Mail has ran a touching article with words from Ronald himself. Read it here

This report by Derek Brazell of the AOI on a visit with the Searles last summer gives a sense of how pleasurable it was to spend a day with Ronald & Monica.

The Mrs Mole drawings are to be published in the UK on the 27th October. Available from the publisher here

Previous post on the Les tres riche heures de Mrs Mole exhibition at London's Cartoon Museum

Searle's Drawing Heroes

2011-09-12T22:30:00.011+01:00

Searle himself has been inspired by a wide array of artists, cartoonist and caricaturists. Searle's own private collection of art contains works by Caracci, Cruickshank, Grosz, Gillray,

There are a handful of key artists and cartoonists whose influence can be detected in his work.
Searle certainly owes a debt to contemporaries such as Andre Francois, Sempe and of course Saul Steinberg.

'Homage au Steinberg'

Through his 50s imprint Perpetua Searle published an academic volume on Toulouse Lautrec and later an illustrated hommage to the short statured ladies man.

In 1977 Searle made a series of studies after Watteau for a medallion design he was working on for the French Mint.

Perhaps Searle's greatest idol is of course Picasso. He made a couple of Punch covers in a Picasso-esque style and even a series of portraits of Picasso in the style of other modern masters.

Punch 29th June 1960

Photographs of the originals in the Searle Archive, Hanover

Portrait of Picasso in the style of Henry Moore

Portrait of Picasso in the style of Graham Sutherland

Portrait of Picasso in the style of Augustus John

Portrait of Picasso in the style of John Bratby

Punch 24th October 1956

Searle seemed to take great delight in working in a Picasso-like fashion. Punch valued Searle's contribution such that it wouldn't surprise me if it was his idea to make these hommages to the greatest living painter of the time.

A Picasso-esque interpretation of John Everett Millais' 'The Boyhood of Raleigh'

Sir Edwin Landseer's 'Monarch of The Glen'

Franz Hals' 'Laughing Cavalier'

Ever versatile Searle emulates Francis Bacon and L. S. Lowry for a Punch satirical 'Arts Takeover'

See also Stephen Nadler's article on a 'triplicate' cartoon from The New Yorker featuring Searle

Searle & Sheriffs

2011-08-30T01:09:00.007+01:00

In this illustration from Punch magazine we see cartoonist Robert Sheriffs commenting on the success of his contemporary's creation around the the release of the first St Trinians film.

'This comes from Punch October 1954. The contrasted brushwork on Searle's hair brows and beard is characteristic Sheriffs - three different ways of drawing in the one image (reproduced originally at 9 x 12 cms).'

Full Table

Double page spread from Punch with theatre caricaturist Searle and Sheriffs covering cinema. See also Punch Theatre

Again here we have a Sheriffs rendition of Searle's schoolgirls in Blue Murder at St. Trinian's reviewed in Punch January 1st, 1958

These early GRANTA caricatures by Searle even appear to bear a more Sheriffs-like influence.

Updates

2011-08-17T17:56:00.003+01:00

Stephen Nadler has another essay on a recent auction of Searle originals here

I've updated the Morbid Anatomies section with hi-res scans from HOLIDAY magazine

Added several more New Yorker Editorial pieces.

Updated the Lilliput Magazine blog with Early Searles

Magazine Illustration Part 4: NEW YORKER magazine COVERS

2011-08-14T22:33:00.009+01:00

January 1979 Rough

SIGNED AND DATED 1988

PEN INK WATERCOLOUR AND BODYCOLOUR 17 3/4 X 12 1/4 INCHES

NEW YORKER , 23 JANUARY 1989 PRELIMINARY FOR COVER

'Ugh!' 2002, cover rough.

'The Great Escape', 2002, cover rough.

Cover rough 2002
pencil, pen and black ink, coloured crayons and watercolour

New Yorker Editorial

2011-08-10T02:41:00.008+01:00

As well as numerous New Yorker covers Searle has provided several editorial spots over the years such as this caricature accompanying a profile of John Cleese.
(I'm grateful to Stephen Nadler for the scans.)

Two more 'late period' caricatures from the Jan 25, 1993 issue.

July 26, 1993

August 9, 1993

Jan. 15, 1990

April 12, 1993

December 21, 1992

February 22, 1993

January 8, 1996

'Spectre de la Rose meets Gertrude Stein' 10th Feb 1992

December 28, 1992

Party Animal Rough Sketch

'Angel of Inspiration'

'Rather hot day'

pencil, pen and black ink and black wash, 12½ x 17 in.

New Yorker, 19 November, 1966.

The Square Egg, published by Weidenfeld, London, 1968.

January 13, 1992

P. G. Wodehouse

Brand new HOLIDAY!

2011-07-29T23:11:00.002+01:00

My latest haul of vintage HOLIDAY mags yielded some exciting Searle illustrations. High quality scans to follow soon-for now here's a sneak peek!

Auction

2011-07-28T00:54:00.000+01:00

Regular contributor Mr Nadler has started his own blog with a nice write up on Searle originals at auction. Read it here

POW

2011-07-19T02:33:00.005+01:00

Here is a contribution that I've been meaning to post for ages! Many thanks to Bronwen Barry who shared this story of her grandfather's acquaintance with Ronald Searle.

"Geoffrey Brameld--my Grandfather, my Mum's Dad-- In India 1939, not long before he went away to war and was captured by the Japanese; he was a POW in Singapore(and I think Siam) for about 6 years. He was in the Changi camp with a very young artist named Ronald Searle for a time.When he was released he weighed 120 lbs, he was 6'6".

On one of my trips to England as a kid of 11(in 1967) I distinctly remember Grandpa (who was quite frail at the time-- he died in 1969) bringing out some rather yellowed rolled up drawings Searle had done in the camps and given him.. very like the ones we know from the Kwai book. Grandpa treasured these.. I thought they were amazing.. For the past 30 years I've been asking after these drawings.. and no one in the family(including my late grandmother)ever seemed to know what happened to them.. Heartbreaking.

Though we've all been touched by the Searle drawings in the Kwai book,it remains impossible to imagine what those fellows went through in those camps..My Grandfather was 40ish at the time, and, though he was always slender, for his height (as you well know) 120 lbs. is beyond emaciated.(He never told me this firsthand-- it was my Mother who told me of his condition upon release.) Though he (as did most people back then) smoked like a train, his health never really recovered after the POW experience... He died of emphysema at the age of 69 in 1969).
As for the missing drawings-- I wish to heaven there was an attic somewhere I could rummage through. Alas, since I've spent my whole life in Canada and the US, and my grandparents were by then back in England, people have since moved, died and so forth.Any living relatives who would know anything at all claim they have never come across them; so I just have to let the whole idea go,and assume I've been told the truth.

When I wrote to Mr Searle I mentioned my Grandfather in detail, hoping he might remember him, as clearly they knew each other well enough for a London follow-up and the drawing given (along with an autographed copy of Souls in Torment).When he kindly replied, he said his memory re: the camps was no longer as sharp as it once was, so unfortunately he couldn't recall him.]

And last but not least, the above mentioned drawing that Mr Searle gave my Grandfather for my Mum in London in 1954.As both my parents have now passed on,it is as you well may imagine, one of my most cherished possessions..."

(Many thanks to Bronwen-sorry it took so long to publish!)

Le Monde

2011-06-29T22:06:00.018+01:00

21 drawings from Le Monde are on show at the Galerie Vision, Tourtour between 5 July-5 October.

In his eighties Searle was invited to contribute a political cartoon to French journal Le Monde. This ongoing series is regarded by the artist as amongst his favourite.
A selection is published in this collection at right (French edition shown)

'Planete Poubelle'

'Et les rues sont pavees d'or'

'Le Sherif'

'Pollution'

'Middle Eastern Neighbours'

'UbuHussein'

'Africa: The Knife of Damocles'
Le Monde, 4 April 1995

Cartoon Museum collection © Copyright the estate of Ronald Searle and the Sayle Literary Agency.

In these shots taken from the originals in the collection of the Karikatur Museum, Hanover we can see Searle's thought process behind the editorial illustrations for Le Monde

And the final 'Tapis Magique' ('Magic Carpet')

Again, here we see the artist experimenting with the composition

'Le Semeur' ('The Sower')

Update summer 2011

2011-06-18T18:49:00.018+01:00

I've updated the TV Guide section with some higher quality images including a scan of this 1990 Halloween cover.

I can't believe I missed Michael Sporn's excellent post on 'Energetically Yours'! Director Dave Hilberman's son sent a batch of scans of original cels from the project-anyone who has seen the somewhat faded print on YouTube will be impressed by the vivid colour of the original cels. Check them out here

Another animation historian Amid Amidi of Cartoon Brew recently put me in touch with another relative of Dave Hilberman who had unearthed this fun sketch in his garage. I think it's safe to identify this as by Searle's hand and seems to be a discarded idea from the film. I'll add all this new material to the Energetically Yours section.

I've added a couple of new images to the songbooks section here.

Several Lemon Hart Rum images added to this section.

I've started a new blog highlighting a special book I put together with the artists at Pixar for Ronald's 91st birthday. Check it out over here

Thanks to Cassie McGettigan who sent me this shot of her friend wearing a Searle design for the Met Opera, 1982. Anybody with more info on these Rhinemaidens or Searle's work for the Met?

This sleeping Valkyrie was possibly made for the Metropolitan Opera in 1987.

I stumbled upon this article reprinting a 1949 story by Freddy Bloom accompanied by a Searle illustration typical of that period.

Hommage a Searle

2011-06-07T16:53:00.007+01:00

Of course cartoonists and animators find it hard to resist aping Searle's style. Sometimes it's fun to do this just as an exercise. I've updated the 'Hommage' section (part 2) with some recent Searle-esque drawings by Ken Turner. See more in Part 1

I've started a new blog highlighting a special book I put together with the artists at Pixar for Ronald's 91st birthday. Check it out over here

Searle in Canada

2011-05-20T02:31:00.006+01:00

Searle's trip to Canada in the 60s as reported on in the UK newspaper The Sun.

The report as originally published in full colour in HOLIDAY magazine, April 1964
(Thanks to Brendan Amphlet & Uli Meyer for the scans)

This would later lead to a commission from The Hudson's Bay Company to illustrate their calender, the drawings for which were subsequently published in the book THE GREAT FUR OPERA, 1970.

The Hudson’s Bay Company

A TRICENTENNIAL REPORT

Having worked like a beaver to overcome three centuries of plunging thermometers, recalcitrant Indians, and fierce competitors from Quebec and the U.S.A., it remains today the continent’s most durable trading enterprise

By DAVID LAVENDER

With drawings by RONALD SEARLE

American Heritage Magazine, April 1970 Vol. 21, Issue 3.

Searle's Sustenance

2011-05-09T16:49:00.003+01:00

I found some interesting Searle rarities in the this obscure collection: 'All the Art That's Fit to Print (And Some That Wasn't) Inside The New York Times Op-Ed Page' by Jerelle Kraus (Columbia University Press 2009)

'Searle had already sent us the perfect portrayal when an Op-Ed poem lamented our planet's thirst for petroleum products.'

"My drawing for 'Summer Poems' (1995) was killed by the Times because an editor (Howell Raines) detected an erection in it. That's his fantasy of course, since nothing is more pure than the image of a man being sick in the street."

Updates

2011-04-25T19:00:00.004+01:00

Michael Sporn has posted scans from THE FEMALE APPROACH over on his blog

Thanks to contributor Chris Bale I'm able to fill in the gaps with the 'Toujours Provence' drawings that appeared in the Sunday Telegraph magazine. Follow this link to see the scans.

Being Squeezed?

2011-04-22T23:35:00.002+01:00

(Image courtesy of Derek Brazell at the AOI with permission for mRonald Searle)

"Ronald Searle, influential illustrator and AOI Patron, has created a new image to help the Pro-Action campaigning committee promote its aims. It is part of our new ‘Being Squeezed?’ advert."

The AOI

Ronald Searle Suite

2011-04-12T22:49:00.002+01:00

Cartoon Brew recently picked up on my article on Energetically Yours. The comments section threw up some interesting leads . . .

Magazine Illustration 3: Argosy

2011-04-07T22:41:00.002+01:00

Argosy March 1961 'The Fastest Pen in the West'

Argosy (UK) [v26 # 4, April 1965] Searle in Paris

More Ronald Searle Magazine Illustration

Part 1 TV Guide

Part 2 HOLIDAY

Morbid Anatomies

2011-03-21T20:46:00.012Z

Perhaps inspired by this 1950 Lilliput illustration Searle's 'Morbid Anatomies' first appeared in Holiday magazine

HOLIDAY magazine February 1958

HOLIDAY magazine April 1961

Searle's agent was forced to threaten legal action when the series was later ripped off for a print campaign advertising London Fog overcoats. Vogue Magazine was good enough to commission the artist himself to produce this variation. . .

. . . as was HOLIDAY magazine.

"I found this Ronald Searle illustration, which accompanies a tongue-in-cheek article on Southern mores and manners by North Carolina–born author Frances Gray Patton, in the November 1959 issue of Holiday magazine. . ."

http://southernontheinside.wordpress.com/2010/11/01/morbid-anatomy-of-a-southern-belle/#comment-254

The Morbid Anatomy was subsequently appropriated by other cartoonists.

Cartoon Museum, London

Updates

2011-03-16T00:16:00.007Z

Added some rare early colour examples to the Lilliput blog
(courtesy of the comprehensive Fulltable website)
See more colour images from Lilliput here

The British Museum has finally started to put its archive online. You can now view excellent images of Searle's Rake's Progress series here .

Readers may recall my visit to the Drawings & Prints room to photograph the originals.

Added a rare early dustjacket to the bookcover section

Added LBJ to the Political Portraits section

Published the Energetically Yours section

Champagne!

2011-03-09T18:02:00.004Z

'Hanover, Germany - The British cartoonist Ronald Searle, who has lived in the south of France for the past three decades, has sold a lifetime of original drawings to a German museum, the museum said Wednesday.

Searle's spiky cartoons have been a fixture in the news media, books and films for more than six decades.

The Wilhelm Busch Museum of Caricature and Drawing in Hanover is to mount a first exhibition, spanning 75 years of his work, later this month, Gisela Vetter-Liebenow, deputy museum director, said.

She said Searle, 91, and his wife Monica had been paid just under 1 million euros (1.4 million dollars) by the Lower Saxony state culture fund for more than 2,000 sketches, 50 books of drawings and lithographs. The British Museum in London also holds Searle work.

"He's still drawing," said Vetter-Liebenow.

The sale of literary papers includes drawings he did on a 1961 assignment for US magazine Life of the trial of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem.'

www.earthtimes.org

Ronald Searle stresses that the 1 million euro sale has actually been in the form of an ongoing 'pension' payment to him and Monica. Awarded by the Lower Saxony cultural foundation for Ronald's long association with the museum (since around 1960).

I just stumbled upon this article from the AOI's Derek Brazell, where Ronald mentions the Wilhelm-Busch museum.

AOI Patron, Ronald Searle, would never lay claim to this himself, but he is one of the most influential illustrators the UK has produced, and has esteemed illustrators like Ralph Steadman, Posy Simmons, Steve Bell and Gerald Scarfe lining up to pay tribute to him and his work. His work has encompassed everything from sensitive depictions of refugees to the hilarious out of control St Trinian's schoolgirls. AOI's Derek Brazell visited Ronald and his wife Monica in April to interview him for an upcoming book Making Great Illustration. They live in a picturesque hilltop village in the south of France, where they have been resident since the sixties, and were charmingly welcoming, breaking out the famous pink champagne 'engine-oil'!

Ronald spoke about how professional he believed the AOI was and how much he liked Varoom magazine, as well as covering his thoughts on illustration and how he puts his artwork together. He also spoke about his work held at the Wilhelm-Busch-Museum in Hannover, 'What they wanted was the possibility to have the whole archive of one person that they could actually open to the public to show how one illustrator would work. So I’m leaving all my archive, and all my basic stuff to them, which is protected under German law, can never be split up, must be available to the public. If by any chance the museum closed it belongs to the German state and must go to another museum. Fantastic.'
From the AOI website

Ronald and Monica Searle at the museum in 2001 for their joint exhibition Searle and Searle. Monica had her hand-made jewelry designs on display.

HAPPY 91st BIRTHDAY RONALD!

2011-03-03T02:14:00.012Z

To celebrate Ronald's 91st let's take a look back at last years' celebratory exhibitions for his 90th. For those who couldn't make it to London here's a birthday treat. The highlight was the Cartoon Museum's retrospective curated by Anita O Brien with the collaboration of Ronald and Monica Searle and Steve Bell.
Featuring hundreds of choice pieces it was heaven for Searle fans!

The rabbit featured in Wendy Toye's production of 'Wild Thyme' (1955)

Across town at Chris Beetles' gallery they were celebrating with an extensive retrospective too. Some pieces were on loan from the collections of Searle fans but most were available to purchase.

"Objects of worship I should imagine"

Hullo clouds, hullo sky

2011-02-25T18:55:00.002Z

The U.K.'s top medical journal The Lancet review Mrs Mole:

For the young Ronald Searle, art was a means of survival. Held in appalling conditions as a prisoner of war in southeast Asia between 1942 and 1945, he drew scenes of camp life with whatever materials were to hand, hiding his work under the mattresses of cholera victims to avoid discovery.

Against the odds, Searle endured and went on to enjoy a remarkably long and varied career. Perhaps best known for St Trinian'sand Molesworth, his drawings have appeared in innumerable books, newspapers, magazines, and advertisements. Guardiancartoonist Steve Bell has described Searle's work as “the highest form of conceptual art, but devoid of any of the pretence that usually accompanies such a notion. Which is to say it is extremely funny, but not all the time. It cuts to the essence of life.”

The essence of life is the subject of Les Très Riches Heures de Mrs Mole. Its title is a play on Les Très Riches Heures du Duc du Berry, the 15th-century book of hours that illustrates the milestones of the year. Every one of Searle's 47 pictures represents a milestone, too: they were produced to mark each chemotherapy session that his wife, Monica, had after her diagnosis with breast cancer in 1969. These images were never intended for publication or display; Searle brought them to his wife's bedside in Paris, whilst their new house in Provence was renovated. During building work, the Searles had made the unexpected discovery of an extensive cellar. Combining this subterranean world with Monica's nickname—“Mo”—Searle created his wife's alter ego, Mrs Mole.

Mrs Mole is a round, happy creature whose snout curves naturally into a smile. She is mostly seen in a patchwork apron; she has a bob of black hair, and her green eyes are framed by dark lashes. In Searle's depiction of her day-to-day life, Monica's medical treatment is only alluded to obliquely. In one charming image, a white rabbit, equipped with a doctor's bag (labelled “First Rabbit Aid”), binds up an injury on Mrs Mole's foot. Yet the experience of illness, and the physical restrictions it brings, is central to the drawings. Informed by his own experience of ill-health and curtailed freedom, Searle constructed an existence Monica could enjoy vicariously. “I would lie in bed”, she later said, “living the life he created in the pictures”. It is a life consisting of simple, mainly solitary pleasures. Mrs Mole sweeps the floor, swims, sews, gathers flowers, and enjoys tea on the terrace. The images celebrate the things Monica enjoyed before her illness and anticipate future pleasures. In one picture, Mrs Mole waters a cedar Searle and his wife planned to plant in the garden; in another, she sips champagne, a daily indulgence Searle promised himself during his days of incarceration, and which, it was hoped, Monica would one day enjoy again.

These drawings are some of Searle's best work. His use of colour is bold and assured. It is reminiscent, at times, of those other artists inspired by the landscape of Provence: Vincent van Gogh, Raoul Dufy, and Paul Cézanne. The most striking images are those of spring; and this may be because, with their budding flowers and emerging butterflies, these are the pictures that represent new hope. The final picture is not part of the main series: it forms a sort of epilogue. 16 June 1967—16 June 1975. The Beautiful Dream—Come True xxx was produced just before the Searles took up permanent residence in Provence. Mr Mole, in patchwork trousers, stands with open arms, preparing to catch his wife as she falls from the sky; it is as if Heaven has returned her. There really was a happy ending to the Searles' story. Monica beat the odds and survived her cancer. Now aged 85, she and Ronald, 90, live in their house in Provence where he continues to enjoy—and draw inspiration from—pink champagne. The planned cedar never took, despite two attempts. A sturdy fig tree, however, sprung up in its place, and continues to flourish. Rich hours indeed.

Niall Boyce

The Lancet, Volume 377, Issue 9767

Ronald Searle cartoons go on show to help breast cancer charities

2011-02-19T22:21:00.012Z

Private drawings he created while his wife suffered from the disease will be on display at Cartoon Museum in London

Maev Kennedy The Guardian Monday 14 February 2011

Monica and Ronald Searle at home in France. Photograph: Eamonn McCabe for the Guardian

Cheerful Mrs Mole pottered happily around her idyllic home, stitching patchwork, making cakes, stirring pots, arranging flowers, at an absolutely gruesome time in the lives of the cartoonist Ronald Searle and his wife, Monica.The complete collection of Mrs Mole drawings, created by Searle and intended as private, bittersweet jokes never meant for publication, will go on display at the Cartoon Museum in London this week.
In 1969, Monica was diagnosed with breast cancer and given only a few months to live. She was offered a course of what in those days was seen as an experimental form of chemotherapy. Searle, regarded by his peers as the greatest living cartoonist, recalls his reaction: "I had only my talent for drawing ... so I drew."

He gave her the Mrs Mole drawings as she lay in her hospital bed in Paris, one for each of her treatments, showing Monica's alter ego cheerful and busy in a setting heavily based on their own home in a village in Provence.
The drawings were full of details from their domestic life: her grandmother also pottered about carrying a basket of keys, and in the renovation of their own house they had recently discovered a bundle of huge, ancient keys. Monica recalled: "I would lie in bed, living the life he created in the pictures."
She was pronounced clear of the cancer in 1975, and today they still live in Mrs Mole's beautiful house.
Searle, whose first published drawings recall the three and a half years he survived in a Japanese prisoner of war camp, and who went on to create the hellish schoolgirls from St Trinians and the immortal Nigel Molesworth, has been awarded a CBE in Britain and the Legion d'Honneur in his adopted home in France. He is a trustee of the Cartoon Museum, which mounted a retrospective last year to mark his 90th birthday.
The museum is working with breast cancer charities on the exhibition, which runs until 20 March.
Image courtesy of Ronald Searle

More Mrs Mole here, here and here

Brian Sibley on Mrs Mole here

THE SUICIDE & REINCARNATION OF AN EXTREMELY SMALL MAN (1972)

2011-02-03T22:14:00.003Z

'A rare mini-comic by Ronald Searle. It's the forty-first volume of a series of limited editions called Les Poquettes volantes. (I've never seen any other volume.) In name, size (13,5 x 10,2 cm) and style of this booklet reminds me of L'Association's (much later) Patte de mouche series.' From THIS Flickr set by Arthur van Kruining

I asked Ronald if this series of drawings sprang from an animated project. He told me;

'the little booklet: Suicide,etc. was Vol: 41 in a continuing series called 'Les Poquettes Volantes' from a slightly surrealistic publisher in Belgium - a friend - who gave every writer or artist a totally free hand and each poquette was limited to 1000 copies. It was fun to do. It wasn't more than that. Not a storyboard idea, or anything else.'

Apparently Searle did another booklet in this series LES VOLANTES DU RAVISSEUR (#42) but I haven't been able to locate it yet.

Update

2011-01-19T22:55:00.003Z

Gerald Scarfe chooses his top 10 cartoonists with Mr Searle of course Number 1! Read the story here
(Thanks to Claude)

You can now follow errant skoolboy Nigel Molesworth on Twitter

Great new blog collecting & selling vintage Punch covers inc. Searle's.

A nice Searle quote on drawing here

Les Très Riches Heures de Mrs. Mole

2011-01-11T23:33:00.003Z

Ronald Searle: Exhibition with Reception and Talk

Tuesday, 15 February 2011
The Foundling Museum, 40 Brunswick Square, London, WC1N 1AZ

Artists' Choice Editions present an exhibition of the 47 paintings Ronald Searle made for his wife, Monica, to cheer her whilst she was undergoing five years of chemotherapy.

Proceeds in aid of Macmillan Cancer Support and The Foundling Museum.

There is a talk at 7.15pm by Valerie Grove on Searle’s life. Prints signed by Monica & Ronald Searle will be for sale on the evening and a book, Les Très Riches Heures de Mrs Mole, illustrating the paintings, will be available.

6.30 to 9pm. Booking essential. Tickets £20.00.

Click here for the invitation - giving full details of how to book tickets, etc.

Also the Cartoon Museum,London will be showing the Mrs Mole pictures for a month from 16 Feb to 20 March. Curator Anita O'Brien informs me that conversations with Monica Searle will provide more background to each picture.

Merry Christmas from Ronald Searle!

2010-12-22T23:15:00.006Z

Those lucky enough to be on Searle's Christmas Card list receive a nice surprise every year. Ex-Disney animator Vladimir 'Bill' Tytla was one of those fortunate few-Searle met him in New York and remembers the volatile Ukranian fondly.

Tytla's widow Adrienne assembled a giant book on her husband's life in which several cards from Searle are reproduced.

Christmas Card Box-set

2002 rough concept

Ronald's 1998 Christmas Card

Searle's cards in the last few years have featured Santa and his reindeer and coloured balloons.

Ronald's 2008 Christmas Card

2010

Desert Island Discs

2010-12-18T19:17:00.002Z

Ronald talks to Sue Lawley in this 2005 recording made at his home in Provence (Thanks to Stephen Nadler)

Searle is one of a handful of people who have appeared on the show twice. His first time in 1958 yielded a different selection-

Update

2010-12-05T22:44:00.007Z

I've updated the following sections:
Heroes Of Our Time with a photograph of Searle with his portraits.

Punch Theatre with several images photographed from the original drawings.

The Big City Or The New Mayhew with two more images.

Molesworth

Political Portraits

Chelsea Arts Ball

"Energetically Yours"

2010-12-02T01:31:00.017Z

Last year at the CTN-X animation in Los Angeles I screened 'Energetically Yours' as part of my presentation on Searle and his work in animation & film titles. The short recently turned up on YouTube so I'd like to feature it here along with some of the rare material I've collated on the project.

In 1957 Standard Oil commissioned Searle to design the short which saw him visit America for the first time. The film was produced through Transfilm with the actual animation created by Dave Hilberman (a founding member of UPA) at Playhouse Pictures with Bill Melendez supervising animation and Art Babbitt animating at Quartet Films in Los Angeles. Searle spent several months in the US where his time was split between the ad agency (McCann-Erickson) in New York and the production outfits in LA.

"In that 16 minutes nearly 25,000 drawings were shown. The cost was four months work, often night and day, by something like 150 people and an expenditure of 450, 000 dollars."
Wine & Spirit Trade Review, 7 March 1958

The Oct. 14, 1957 issue of TIME magazine commented:

'Standard Oil's $600,000 75th Anniversary Show, to be staged in color over NBC (9 to 10:30 p.m., E.D.T.) by Theaterman Cyril Ritchard, stars Tyrone Power, Jimmy Durante, Bert Lahr, Donald O'Connor, Jane Powell, Marge and Gower Champion, Brandon de Wilde, Duke Ellington, Eddie Mayehoff, Kay Thompson, Columnist Art Buchwald and British Cartoonist Ronald Searle.'

Indeed Searle himself featured on camera, reputedly paid $1000 a minute to utter a mere ten words "But artists, like children, should be seen and not heard". Searle joked Afterwards that he subsequently tried to appear on US television as often as possible!

Mr Searle sent me several of the following 'behind the scenes' photographs taken during the making of the film (more of which I unearthed in the Searle Archive, Hannover).

Searle at work on the storyboard.

Pitching the board to director Dave Hilberman.

Here we see Searle holding his storyboard with Animation Supervisor Bill Melendez on the right and designer Sterling Stuydevant on the left of the pictures.

Searle comparing notes with Dave Hilberman.

Searle & Hilberman catch up on the other's respective news headlines!

Animation supervisor Bill Melendez pitches to director Dave Hilberman.

ESSO magazine Autumn 1958 (vol VII number 4)

The June 1958 of Locomotive Engineers Journal had a feature on the film.

(NeatoCoolville blog)

LIFE magazine also did a spread on the film and Searle's involvement.

"STANDARD OIL 75th ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL - Jo Coppola, writing in her column "The View from here" in the New York Post of Monday, October 14, 1957: "The 75th Anniversary Show of Standard Oil of New Jersey (NBC, 9 p.m.), which was said to have as its theme: 'The Wonders of Today and the promise of Tomorrow,' was a slick variety show featuring some of yesterday's best-loved TV acts....the sets on the 75th Anniversary Show were lavish indeed and some of the staging by theater veteran Cyril Ritchard was unique. Tyrone Power, the film idol, was the host and spokesman for the birthday celebration. He introduced the numbers and paid tribute to Standard Oil Company (New Jersey) which, of course, paid the bills....Jimmy Durante was on hand with a bevy of beautiful girls in satin gowns; Donald O'Connor and Sid Miller did one of their Tin Pan Alley spoofs on a horror-musical and Bert Lahr and Durante exchanged quips in a nostalgic duet. Also in the smooth variety show were Jane Powell (in satin), Marge and Gower Champion, Duke Ellington and his orchestra, comedian Eddie Mayehoff and the energetic Kay Thompson. Art Buchwald, syndicated columnist, was brought over from France to introduce a number--which shows how far TV is willing to go to get fresh new faces....Ronald Searle, British caricaturist, introduced a cartoon of his own making ... Wisa D'Orsa and a group danced to the sounds of radar and Sputnik's beeps.... [The show was] expertly put together."

Here's the film on YouTube.

The film print is rather faded but these set-ups give a better idea of how vibrant the original colour styling was.

Thanks to Amid Amidi for contributing supplementary material and permission to

reproduce from his book CARTOON MODERN

Michael Sporn unearthed a treasure trove of original cels from the film.

Thanks to Amid Amidi for contributing supplementary material & permission to reproduce from his book CARTOON MODERN

Animator Dan Blank, whose wife's grandfather was a cousin of Dave Hilberman, dug this out of his garage! Somewhat yellowed and water damaged it appears to be a cut gag drawing for the film by Searle. (Thanks to Dan & Amid Amidi for bringing this to my attention.)

More on Searle's work in FILM here.
Searle's titles for MONTE CARLO OR BUST! here

Book Covers

2010-11-14T23:05:00.014Z

Aside from his own books Searle has illustrated countless book covers-he was so prolific in the 50s that it's unsure how many exactly he did! I've collated here as many as I could find. Some titles I was unable to trace images for).

Tales of the Supernatural Anthology. (1947)

'That Winter' by Merle Miller (1948)

'With My Little Eye' by Roy Fuller (1948)

'Dear Life' by H. E. Bates (1950)

'Adam and Eve in America' by Luigi Olivero (1951)

'The Plays of Sheridan' (1951)

'Billy Budd & Other Stories' by Herman Melville (1951)

'Number 9' A P Herbert (1951)

'An Evening At The Larches' Harry Hearson & J. C. Trewin (1951)

'The Way to Glory' by j d scott (1952)

'London So Help Me!' by Winifred Ellis (1952)

'Charley Moon' by Reginald Arkell (1953)

'Jorkens Borrows Another Whiskey' by Lord Dunsany (1954)

'Jumping Joan & Other Stories' by C.H.B. Kitchin (1954)

'Anglo Saxon Attitudes' by Angus Wilson (1956)

'La Signora Della Torre' John Symonds (1957)

'My Uncle Harry' by Geoffrey Willans (1957)

'To My Astonishment' by Diana Graves (1958)

'The Gay Twenties' by J.C. Trewin (1958)

'A Phoenix Too Frequent' by Christopher Fry (1959)

'The Anger of Achilles' by Robert Graves (1960)

Le Vent des Pins (1958), translated as 'Welcome Honourable Visitors' (1960)

'Lady L' by Romain Gary (1973)

(Photographed from the original artwork)

'Le Palais d'hiver' by Roger Grenier (1973)

'The Bostonians' by Henry James (1973)

'A Wolf in Frog's Clothing, The Best of Alphonse Allais' (1989)

'I Have No Gun but I Can Spit: An Anthology of Satirical and Abusive Verse' by Kenneth Baker (1991)

Original artwork, Cartoon Museum London

'Candy Is Dandy' by Ogden Nash (1994)

'A French Affair' by Mary Blume (1994)

'What Am I Still Doing Here?' by Roger Lewis (2011)

Searle's Eye View: Imaginary Portraits

2010-10-31T17:20:00.002Z

After Searle left England for France in 1961 his work still appeared in Punch magazine for another year. This long series of Imaginary Portraits depicted Searle's version of well known creative types of the day. Unlike the more serious Heroes of Our Time portraits from the late fifties these are much more cartoon-like.

1 Enid Blyton

2 Colin Wilson

3 Samuel Beckett (Punch, 13 December 1961)

4 P.G Wodehouse

(Punch, 20 December, 1961.)

5 C. S. Forester

6 John Osborne

7 Robert Graves

(Punch, Imaginary Portraits: 7, 10 January, 1962.)

Photographed from the original artwork

9 Eugene Ionesco

10 Tennesee Williams

11 Veronica Wedgwood

12 Alan Sillitoe

13 Angus Wilson

14 C. P. Snow

15 Ivy Compton Burnett

16 Lawrence Durrell

17 Iris Murdoch

(PUNCH, 21 MARCH 1962, PAGE 478)

Photographed from the original artwork

18 Aldous Huxley

19 Muriel Sparke

20 Sir Arthur Bryant

21 Georges Simenon

Photographed from the original artwork

22 Alberto Moravia

23 Jack Kerouac

24 Denise Robbins

25 Freya Starke

26 Benjamin Britten

27 Alfred Hitchcock

Photographed from the original artwork

28 Walt Disney

29 Ingmar Bergman

30 John Betjeman

31 Compton Mackenzie

32 Brendan Behan

33 Agatha Christie

34 Ian Fleming

35 John Bratby

36 Pietro Annigoni

37 Shelagh Delaney

38 Harold Hobson

39 Graham Sutherland Graham Sutherland
(Punch, Issue 22, August 1962)

40 C. N. Parkinson

41 Bernard Buffet
(PUNCH, 5 SEPTEMBER 1962, PAGE 356)

42 N. F. Simpson
(Punch, Imaginary Portraits: 40, 12 September, 1962.)

Photographed from the original artwork

British Theatre drawings for Punch
French Theatre drawings for Punch
Heroes of Our Time Portraits for Punch