Searle's Dogs

Ronald Searle was, of course, famous for his cat drawings but he told me he was never particularly fond of cats they were merely "what sold".  His various depictions of dogs over the years are just as funny and he produced a whole book on the canine personality "With four lugubrious verses" written by 'Molesworth' creator Geoffrey Willans in 1958.

Searle lived in Paris for the best part of the sixties. A city of dog lovers, it commissioned Searle in the eighties to illustrate a campaign to keep its sidewalks clean!

'Particularly revolting dog glowing under the impression that it is man's best friend'

Searle's covers for the New Yorker usually featured his famously laconic felines but this one, published Sept 19, 1970, depicts a site often observed in the richer parts of large cities.

Early examples from the 1950s published in News Chronicle

'First Class'

'Stately homes' NY Times

'Palm Springs' feature HOLIDAY magazine February 1965

Mr Punch had a curious canine companion decades before Wallace & Gromit.  His dog was called Toby. 

See more from 'Squires Gin' & the Post Office in the Advertising section pt.2

The Wildcats of St.Trinians

Ronald Searle tried to distance himself from the film adaptations of his St. Trinians, but remained appreciative for the extra income it brought. The last two films made by the modern incarnation of Ealing Films saw Searle benefit with a hefty check that kept him in champagne he said!

'The Wildcats of St. Trinians' was released in 1979 and even then bore little resemblance to Searle's creation, geared towards kids and Dads as Frank 'one take' Launder admits in the video below.   Searle isn't mentioned once either, perhaps thankfully?

I think everyone may have been doing this for the money, including the aging Launder and some of Britain's best known actors of the era. Searle agreed to do the poster art but it looks like it was massacred by an art director with other ideas.

Searle himself appeares in The Belles of St. Trinian's (1954) as a visiting parent

'Searle In America' lecture this saturday

 I'll be giving a talk at San Francisco's Cartoon Art Museum this Saturday, 22nd February on Searle's career.  I'll be focusing on his work in America with a slideshow of rare material and photos that will appear in my upcoming book 'Searle In America'- an expanded version of the exhibition catalogue containing ALL the Searle pictures I have in my database plus the research I've done over the years.

More details here

Animation

London based animator Uli Meyer has been looking to animate a Searle project for several years now.  He completed an impressive test based on the St Trinians girls a couple of years ago, which Searle himself loved when we presented it to him.



 He pitched a potential Searle-esque opening for the Simpsons TV show-it's creator, Matt Groening, is a huge Searle fan.

 

And now Uli has announced his latest animated project in the Searle style- an adaptation of Searle and Geoffrey Willans' 'Molesworth'.  Please check out the Facebook page and support the project by liking it or suggesting it to friends.

If anyone can draw like Ronald Searle Uli can.  Help make it happen!

Bohème

When Searle first moved to Paris in the 1970s he found a local restaurant on the left bank sympathetic to struggling artists. Like the cafes that supported some of the Impressionists and later Picasso and his associates the proprietor was happy to exchange food and wine for artwork. The suitably titled 'Restaurant des Beaux Arts' became the regular meeting place for Searle, his second wife Monica and a group of French cartoonists/satirists. Searle even hand lettered the canopy outside and embellished menus and business cards.

The name of the owner of the Restaurant des Beaux-Arts, Marcelle Methlin, is part of this wonderful tribute Searle made to all his French friends.  The restaurant itself is featured too.

(Thanks to Nancy Beiman)

The Railway Man

Ronald Searle's wartime sketches of his POW experience  feature in the new film 'The Railway Man' - based on Eric Lomax's account of his time on the Thai-Burma 'Death Railway'.  Directed by Jonathan Teplitzky and written by Frank Cottrell-Boyce, the film depicts scenes  of camp internment and jungle clearing straight out of Searle's sketches.  In one scene Nicole Kidman playing Lomax's wife picks up a copy of Searle's 'To the Kwai and Back' and flicks through the pages.

 

(Thanks to Tony Rosenast & Uli Meyer)

"An article by John Connell in Strand Magazine for October 1947 dealing with a subject Searle was sadly well able to illustrate - he himself had been a Japanese POW in the Second World War. This shows the scene in a camp hospital."

From Mike Ashworth's Flickr set