Chilly Lovers

HOLIDAY magazine April 1958

The English Club

Searle's depictions of the traditional English 'drawing room' environment or gentlemen's club are bravura examples of his technique.

'The English Club' Adam 1962

 'The Fortress of the Englishmen' Punch 1958

 'The characters of Agatha Christie' May14th, 1956 LIFE magazine

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.'

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