Ronald Searle - part 20

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 too many works to post in one series, so I am posting them in two separate series: 1940-1960, and 1961-2007.

For a more detailed biography see part 1, and for earlier works, see parts 1 - 13 (series 1) & parts 14-19 (series 2) 

This is part 20 of a 26-part series on the works of Ronald Searle:

1975 Bouquets Garnis, Les langage des fleurs: published by Michel Cassé, Paris:

Couillon

Maquereau

Vache

Pourri

Putain

Andouille

Abruti

Chouchou

 

1975 Dick Deadeye (after Gilbert & Sullivan):

Movie Poster

1978 The Savoy of London: published by The Curtis Publishing Co.

1980 The King of Beasts & other creatures (aka 1982 The Situation is Hopeless):

The King of Beasts & other creatures

Imbecile rodent confident that it has a foolproof claim against the Disney Organisation

Agnostic serpent attempting to sell apples

1973 The New Yorker: March 31

1973 The New Yorker: July 16

1973 The New Yorker: August 27

1973 The New Yorker: February 17

1973 Le Palais d'Hiver by Roger Grenier: published by Gallimard

1973 Lady L. by Romain Gary: working sketch
published by Editions Folio

1973 Lady L. by Romain Gary: published by Editions
original artwork

In 1973 Searle was honoured by the Bibliothèque nationale de France,  Paris with a career retrospective- the only living non French artist to be recognised thus.

1974 La Caricature Art et Manifeste Du XVI siecle a nos Jours

1974 The New Yorker: March 18

1974 Le Fou parle, French magazine

1974 The arrival of the oracle: colour lithograph 49.8 x 64.8 cm

1974 The Clown