Le Figaro

As Searle began to branch out into editorial and illustration assignments on the Continent during the 1950s he did several cartoons for French newspaper Le Figaro Littéraire.

Perdu dans le Labyrinthe Londonien, pen and ink, 12 x 13.5", Figaro, 18 February, 1955

Vroomp!!! Crrakk!! Zok!!! (1966)
Pen and wash, 35.2 x 49.1 Collection Monica Searle
Le Figaro Littéraire, October 20, 1966

The Square Egg & The Vicious Circle (1968), Page 15
Ronald Searle (1973) Cabinet des Estampes, Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, Catalogue number 153
Searle & Searle (2001), Catalogue number 16, page 39

 From Stephen Nadler's  'Attempted Bloggery' site



Also:

FIGARO LITTERAIRE (LE) N° 1072 DU 03/11/1966 - LES ALLEMANDS VUS PAR RONALD SEARLE ET HEINZ HUBER 

Ici Londres N°368 25 Fevrier 1955 - Ronald Searle Maître De L'humour Noir -

ECHO REVUE INTERNATIONALE N° 26 DU 01/10/1948 - RONALD SEARLE

 LIBERATION N° 6055 DU 03/11/2000 -RONALD SEARLE CROQUE LA VIE.

Stop, Magazine Arristique et Littéraire N° 72 - Ronald Searle - la Blonde du Texas - Barbarella - la Femme Modele

Morocco

Searle first visited Morocco in March 1951 and a handful of the sketches he made were published in the broadsheet News Chronicle March 28th. I believe he was traveling with his first wife Kaye Webb and it is probably she who penned the accompanying dispatch (as she did for their reports on London for the same publication).












'We saw our first  yashmak in Tangier; the international port where taxes are low and a ten-roomed house sells for 15,000 pounds.
The Arab shop in the souk (bazaar) burst with Swiss watches, French perfume and American shirts, nylons, watches and fountain pens. Great Britain is represented by chocolate and sewing machines.
In Tangiers' market place, the country-women from the Spanish zone, their babies tied to their backs underneath shapeless white haiks, sell flowers, vegetables, much-handled bread and sweetmeats. The men, bearded and turbaned, gather entranced as children round the story-tellers on the square.
The narrow streets are bursting with boot-blacks, vendors, begging children, pickpockets and donkeys so loaded that we cram into noisome doorways to let them go past. . .

'In Fez the Arabs retain their dignity and their privacy in their thousand-year old walled city. Tourists gape at the wonderful golden marriage belts, the elaborately ugly copper bowls, the tooled leather blotters and admire the pretty, friendly children. They have no way of guessing that they are ridden with tuberculosis. . .

In Marrakesh, El Giaoui's country, the people are gayer, lazier, more corrupt. The white clothes are replaced by brilliant jellabahs. There are more bicycles than donkeys and the famous Place Djemaa el Fna is teeming with snake charmers, musicians, dancers and storytellers from breakfast time until nearly midnight. At sunset their their noise reaches a crescendo and drowns the voice calling the faithful to prayer from the nearby mosque - and we never saw any of the audience turn towards Mecca.'

In 1965 Searle returned for a reportage assignment to capture in drawings Casablanca for HOLIDAY magazine. The format allowed him to use colour and a couple of the pictures he made even drop his trademark linework in favour of impressionistic swatches of colour. These pictures are among my favourite of Searle's ouvre. We can see how is style has developed over the intervening 14 years.
On one visit to Searle's studio he permitted me to photograph the original sketchbook he kept on the '65 trip to Morocco and I present them here with the corresponding finished pictures (which were not all published by Holiday).

 

Sources: 

Wilhelm Busch - Deutsches Museum für Karikatur und Zeichenkunst

Holiday Magazine, 

Uli Meyer, 

 British Library, 

News Chronicle

Ronald Searle

News Chronicle

'News Chronicle' featured a full page of Searle cartoons every week during the early fifties. He lampooned British life; humorous takes on everyday situations, events in and around London, art exhibitions and made portraits of notable people of the era and also people 'on the street'.

'HRH the Queen returns from a voyage'

'News Chronicle Saturday: issue Sept 19th

An original illustration for Merry England, etc., Perpetua Books, London, 1956, pp.3,7 and 82

An original illustration for News Chronicle, London, Issue 9, October 1954

Man's best friend "Dog racing/results up yet?/... and don't point/-its rude."

'Tulip Time'

An Illustration for the The News Chronicle, London, 22 May 1954 and Merry England, Etc. Perpetua Books, London 1956, pp. 12, 13 & 14

An original illustration for News Chronicle, 23 August 1954.

Holidays: Home from home: 'The Guest Book'

An original illustration for News Chronicle, London, 19 June 1954.

'Battersea fun fair'

'Burlington House' December 1953 The Royal Academy. Searle recycled the gag above with an object falling out of a painted canvas several times over his career. It deserves a post of its own.

'Summer' June 1954

'Sculpture Exhibition in Holland Park'  

News Chronicle: Saturday Sketch Book, London, 29 May 1954. 

In these sketches for the above that Searle probably made on site we see the artist searching for the 'gag'.

 

'Antique Dealer's Fair' 

News Chronicle, Saturday Sketchbook, 12 June 1954. 

Searle also made portraits of London's citizens, known and unknown,  for the newspaper. They would later be collected in 'Looking at London and People Worth Meeting (1953).
 

 

 'Portrait of Ian MacKay'; pen and brown ink, signed, dated 1952, bears inscription on the mount News Chronicle Searle WSS Feature

Roland Emett at the Festival of Britain News Chronicle, published, London, 12 June 1952 

'People Worth Meeting'.

Emlyn Williams as Charles Dickens

News Chronicle, London Issue, 30 October 1952.

'Portobello Rd. Market'

(Many of the images here are courtesy of the Chris Beetles Gallery, London)