Ronald Searle - part 13

The son of a railwayman, Ronald Searle was born in Cambridge on 3 March 1920, and educated in the town at the Boys' Central School. He started work as a solicitor's clerk, and then joined the hire purchase department of the co-operative Society, studying in the evenings and later full-time at the Cambridge Daily News from the age of fifteen.

Enlisting in the Royal Engineers at the outbreak of the Second World War, he spent time in Kirkcudbright, where he encountered evacuees from St. Trinian's, a progressive girls' school situated in Edinburgh.

This resulted in his first cartoon for Lilliput, published in October 1941, and later developed into one of his most famous creations, through a series of books and their cinematic spin-offs. Remarkably, he survived the horrific experiences of the Changi Camp, Singapore as a Japanese prisoner-of-war and managed to produce a visual record of life in a prison camp.

On his return to England in 1945, he exhibited the surviving pictures at the Cambridge School of Art, and published Forty Drawings. The exhibition and volume together established his reputation as one of Britain's most powerful draughtsmen, and led to several opportunities to record the atmosphere of post-war Europe. He contributed to Punch and these drawings crystallised in, The Female Approach (1949). Throughout the fifties, he produced a large variety of illustrations, which together seemed present a guide to life in Britain in the 1950's.

Such was his success that his rejection of family and country in a move to Paris in 1961 came as a great surprise. However, it offered a fresh start, resulting in several solo shows, including a major exhibitions at the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, the Berlin-Dahlem Museum and the Wilhelm-Busch-Museum, Hanover. He also reached a new audience with his contributions to film and television, most notably The Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines (1965).

Note: Searle did so many works that I want to post here, that I will post them in two separate series: 1940-1960, and at a later date: 1961-2007.

For a more detailed biography see part 1, and for earlier works, see parts 1 - 12 also. 

This is part 13 of a 13-part series on the works of Ronald Searle, dated 1940-1960:

 1959-60 Refugees:

Refugees 1960: A Report in Words and Pictures
published by Penguin Books

1959 Antonio Camp, Salerno
Punch magazine
December 30

1959 Kallithea Camp, Athens
Wilhelm Busch – Deutsches Museum für Karikatur und Zeichenkunst
© The Ronalad Searle Cultural Trust

1959 Room 98, Camp Karls Kaserne, Vienna

1959 Russian Farmer & Daughter, Asten Refugee Camp Austria, 5 November 1959

1959 San Sabba Camp Trieste: New refugees in quarantine
Wilhelm Busch – Deutsches Museum für Karikatur und Zeichenkunst
© The Ronalad Searle Cultural Trust

1959 Traiskirschen Transit Camp, Austria

Athens Camp

Trieste Camp

Refugee Year

Refugee Year

Refugee Year

Refugee Year

Refugee Year

Refugee Year

Refugee Year

Refugee Year

Refugee Year

Refugee Year

Refugee Year

Refugee Year

Salzburg, Austria

Selling Rations

Selling Rations

Vienna

1960 Punch magazine -  Picasso:

Picasso
A Salute from his Contemporaries

Picasso
A Salute from his Contemporaries

Portrait of Picasso in the style of Henry Moore

1960s Ronald Searle's America:

1965 Waikiki Beach 

Honolulu

Beneath the Sea Shell Shop

Las Vegas

New York World's Fair

New York World's Fair

*          *          *          *          *

1959-60 Western Airlines advertisement

1959-60 Western Airlines advertisement

1960 "Howdy, Strangers!"
(Khrushchev, Nixon and Kennedy)
Punch magazine September 14

1960 Punch magazine cover June 29
"After Picasso"

1960 Monte Carlo - or Bust
published by Dennis Dobson, London

1960 On the road with Kennedy
pen and ink and watercolour 40.1 x 50.2 cm

1960 Richard Nixon at an airport Rally
pen and ink and watercolour 50.2 x 38.1 cm

1960 Status by Possession
Punch magazine

1960 Sweet Emma at the Old Absinth House, 240 Bourbon Street, New Orleans
30.7 x 22.9 cm
Wilhelm Busch – Deutsches Museum für Karikatur und Zeichenkunst
©The Ronalad Searle Cultural Trust

1960 The Penguin Ronald Searle
Penguin Books, London

1960 The Penguin Ronald Searle
Penguin Books, London
'I'm afraid it's the weather'

1960 The Plays of Sheridan, The World's Classics
 published by Oxford University Press

1960 The Professor
25.3 x 16.5 cm
Wilhelm Busch - German Museum of Caricature and Drawing

1960 Welcome Honourable Visitors by Jean Raspail
published by Hamish Hamilton, London

Note: The second series on Ronald Searle (1961-2007) will follow at a later date.