ART & ARTISTS: 2022-09-18

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 & 2 also.

This is part 3 of a 13-part series on the works of Ronald Searle, dated 1940-1960:

1944 "Lord have mercy upon us"
watercolour 16.1 x 11.4 cm
Wilhelm Busch – Deutsches Museum für Karikatur und Zeichenkunst
©The Ronalad Searle Cultural Trust

1944/45 "Oh, Mr. Marx, I think your 'Das Kapital' is wonderful"
The Tatler 26 December 1945
Wilhelm Busch – Deutsches Museum für Karikatur und Zeichenkunst
©The Ronalad Searle Cultural Trust

1944 The Inconstant Moon by Noel Langley
published by Arthur Barker
cover and illustrations by Ronald Searle

1944 The Inconstant Moon by Noel Langley
published by Arthur Barker
illustration by Ronald Searle

1944-45 "- and this is Mr. Eccleshave - he wants a bloody Revolution"
published in the London Opinion September 1949
Wilhelm Busch – Deutsches Museum für Karikatur und Zeichenkunst
©The Ronalad Searle Cultural Trust

1944-45 "And now, 47 Nocturnes, composed by myself."
London Opiniom October 1946
Wilhelm Busch – Deutsches Museum für Karikatur und Zeichenkunst
©The Ronalad Searle Cultural Trust

1944-45 "Bump the green one, Perkins"
The Tatler July 1946
Wilhelm Busch – Deutsches Museum für Karikatur und Zeichenkunst
©The Ronalad Searle Cultural Trust

1944-45 "Don't look now, Clancy, but I think there is something wrong with your bearskin."
published in Lilliput
Wilhelm Busch – Deutsches Museum für Karikatur und Zeichenkunst
©The Ronald Searle Cultural Trust

1944-45 "Don't look now, Clancy, but I think there is something wrong with your bearskin."
Wilhelm Busch – Deutsches Museum für Karikatur und Zeichenkunst
©The Ronald Searle Cultural Trust

1944-45 "Get me the zoo, please, Miss Winterton."
The Tatler & Bystander January 9 1946
Wilhelm Busch – Deutsches Museum für Karikatur und Zeichenkunst
©The Ronald Searle Cultural Trust

1944-45 "Half a pound of arsenic, a pint of Prussia acid and a handful of ground glass, please."
Men Only, February 1946
Wilhelm Busch – Deutsches Museum für Karikatur und Zeichenkunst
©The Ronald Searle Cultural Trust

1944-45 "Quick! What do I say now? – Veni, Vidi something"
The Taler 19 December 1945
Wilhelm Busch – Deutsches Museum für Karikatur und Zeichenkunst
©The Ronald Searle Cultural Trust

1944-45 Come along now. Be a good boy and eat your nice missionary.
Wilhelm Busch – Deutsches Museum für Karikatur und Zeichenkunst
©The Ronald Searle Cultural Trust

1944-45 "My deah, aaabstracts ALWAYS make me GIGGLE."
Wilhelm Busch – Deutsches Museum für Karikatur und Zeichenkunst
©The Ronald Searle Cultural Trust

1944-45 "My deah, aaabstracts ALWAYS make me GIGGLE."
1947 Wilhelm Busch – Deutsches Museum für Karikatur und Zeichenkunst
©The Ronald Searle Cultural Trust

1944 'Sorry sir, no smoking in the museum.'

1945 'Sorry Madam, no smoking in the museum'

1945 "My name is Tod, Sir – Quite a coincidence isn't it?"
The Tatler & Bystander 5 December 1945
Wilhelm Busch – Deutsches Museum für Karikatur und Zeichenkunst
©The Ronald Searle Cultural Trust

1946 "... Then the fairy whipped out her Thompson sub machine gun and ripped the elf in half a blazing hail of lead"
Wilhelm Busch – Deutsches Museum für Karikatur und Zeichenkunst
©The Ronald Searle Cultural Trust

1946 At the Theatre: "So Sorry…"

1946 At the Theatre: The Stalls

1946 from Lilliput magazine

1947 Tales of the Supernatural
cover by Ronald Searle

1948 With My Little Eye by Roy Fuller
cover by Ronald Searle

1949 Three Years At The Opera by Patrick Campbell
From Lilliput

1950 A Short Trot with a Cultured Mind by Patrick Campbell
published by The Falcon Press, London
Front Cover

1950 A Short Trot with a Cultured Mind by Patrick Campbell
published by The Falcon Press, London
Title Page

1950 An Irishman's Diary by Patrick Campbell
Front Cover

1950 An Irishman's Diary by Patrick Campbell

1950 Cyclists

1950 Lilliput magazine
September issue

1950 Radio Times cover
January 22-28

1950 The Sure Thing by Merle Miller
cover by Ronald Searle

1950-60 By Rocking Chair Across Sweden
50.7 x 38.1 cm
Wilhelm Busch – Deutsches Museum für Karikatur und Zeichenkunst
© The Ronald Searle Cultural Trust

1950s London Fog coat advertisement
Portrait of a Leading Lady

1951 "My dear, if you don’t haggle they think you’re a tourist"
Wilhelm Busch – Deutsches Museum für Karikatur und Zeichenkunst
©The Ronald Searle Cultural Trust