Tourtour

Tourtour, the Provençal village where the Searles lived, is currently hosting an exhibition 'La Dolce Vita a Tourtour'.
A collection of the cartoons Ronald made for the village magazine 'Lou Troumpetoun' depicting the bucolic Tourtour way of life . . .

For 12 years Searle contributed a back-page cartoon to the village magazine-I saw copies of the whole lot in the village tourism office but they only had one issue available for me to take away. 

Last year Galerie Vision in the village had a small exhibition of Searle originals, apparently the only exhibition of his work in the village during his lifetime.

An animation friend Mark Stanleigh was in Tourtour last year and saw the exhibition.  He left a message for Ronald at the gallery and received a typically generous response.

'This past summer I went on a trip to France and visited the small and beautiful village where Ronald Searle lived. Although I inevitably did not run in to him, I met a friend of his who was kind enough to agree to pass on a letter I wrote for Mr. Searle. In the letter I thanked him for inspiring me so much and included a sketch that I did for him. A

 mere few weeks later I received this bittersweet postcard in the mail in which he thanked me for my letter and informed me that while I was visiting, sadly his wife had passed away. I am still in disbelief that he took the time to write me despite such horrible circumstances. I feel very lucky to have heard from him and thought that I would share his note to me. Thank you Mr. Searle and Rest in Peace.'

From Mark's photographs it looks like the drawings on display were those made for Le Monde through the nineties.

Exhibition 2013 at the Galerie Municipal

The Hunchback of Notre Dame

'For Reader’s Digest, Searle illustrated an abridged version of Victor Hugo’s Notre Dame de Paris which was first published as The Hunchback of Notre-Dame in the USA in 1966, and then republished by the French branch in 1968'

-ECC

Update

I've updated the Film Titles & Posters section here.

I also added artwork from the title sequences & promotional campaigns for the original St Trinians films over on Uli Meyer's 'Animated St. Trinians' blog here.

Also added new images to the TV Guide section

Falstaff!

Thanks to contributor Steph for sending me the scan of this wonderful drawing of Anthony Quayle as Falstaff in the 1951 Stratford season.

See more of Searle's work in the theatre here.

Animation

On YouTube I found a couple of the animated spots Searle made in collaboration with UK animator Ivor Wood. They met in the 60s while both working at La Comète studio in Paris which led to a fruitful partnership over the years. Wood was known in the UK for stop-motion TV series such as Postman Pat but was also a classically trained draughtsman and was one of only a handful who could animate Searle's line. (In fact Ronald deemed Wood his favourite animator of his style)
A couple of years ago Ronald sent me a tape of all the spots they collaborated on.  I've added some screen shots and the relevant storyboards made by Searle.  Searle fans will recognise most of these ideas  re-work older print gags.

  
Ronald told me they pitched these as artistic spots between commercials- but of course not being commercial themselves the idea never found success with TV networks.

Here we see 'The Addict' animated-I'm not sure if the book was published first or whether the storyboards inspired the book?

I'd love to hear from anyone with more info on Searle and Wood's work at La Comete studio, Paris.