Radio Times

I've fallen behind posting material that contributors have sent me. Many thanks to Matthew Davis who sent these scans of Searle's early career work for Radio Times magazine. He collated them from various retrospectives of Radio Times art published over the years.

Apparently this one set in the cemetery was specifically assigned to Searle because of his “Paris Sketchbook”.

Christmas 1947

RADIO TIMES - JUNE 29 - JULY 5, 1947 RONALD SEARLE - ODD MAN OUT COVER

". . . During the Second World War, Searle was captured by Japanese forces in Singapore and from 1942 was kept as a prisoner at Changi, where he was forced to work on the Burma railway by day but by night secretly continued his cartoons. 

He created St Trinian's while a prisoner and though he had been drawing professionally since he left school, it was after the war that his career brought him fame - and then in 1947 the accolade of drawing the Christmas cover for Radio Times.

His work for Radio Times included many sketches accompanying dramas such as the first play by John Galsworthy, best known now for The Forsyte Saga, in 1948 and productions of John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men in 1949. But he also illustrated documentaries and talks, of which the most striking was 1947's The Enigma of the Japanese (left): Searle drew the Radio Times billing and appeared in the programme itself to discuss his wartime captivity.

Searle's drawings were collected in The Art of Radio Times, published in 1981, and many of his wartime pieces are held at the Imperial War Museum in London."

-William Gallagher,  03 January 2012

The Rakes Progress pt.4

Here are the last of The British Museum pics. I've posted them all very hi-res so click the images to see better the details in the enlargments. Thanks again to Pete Western for the photos.

Above we can observe in the crowd on the left Searle's technique of scratching into the ink work. He would often do this to hair to give an extra feeling of depth when reproduced smaller in magazines. We can see it too in the next image to define the raindrops.

The Rakes Progress pt.3

The Rakes Progress pt.2

A couple months back I hooked up with fellow Searle fan Pete Western for a visit to the Prints & Drawings dept. at the British Museum in London. They hold the entire collection of the original drawings for Searle's 'The Rakes Progress'. There are several boxes of drawings & we only had time to look through a couple. The museum allowed us to photograph the drawings for personal use only as the copyright resides with the artist. Mr Searle granted me permission to publish the photos so I hope the British Museum is OK with this post.


It was enlightening to see the original artwork. The printed pages tend to lose a lot of the nuance of Searle's drawings. But in the photographs you can see the various media & techniques he used.


Here's a scan of a page from the printed book.


Click on the image to see the enlarged detail.
















I was surprised to see that this one was drawn without ink at all but in crayon.



Thanks to Pete for the excellent photographs. More to come soon . . .

Part 1 of 'The Rake's Progress' here.

Changi Gaol 3

This just in from reader Mike Poole. His grandfather George 'Piggy' Poole was interned in Changi Gaol with Searle & collaborated on prison magazine 'SURVIVOR' with him. Mike has a copy of the magazine in his possession & sent me the following scans.


This issue features a story written by Poole & illustrated by Searle.

Letter from Searle to Poole:

Sonia Kretschmar dug up the following article on 'The Survivor'

Changi Gaol part 1 and part 2