Happy Thanksgiving!

  I wish I had discovered this one for my book ‘Ronald Searle’s America’! It’s in the JFK Presidential Library. Looks like a HOLIDAY magazine commission. 

‘A man on a donkey gazes at a tall, ornate building, "American Embassy", topped with many television and radio antennae and surrounded by a crowded parking lot. A village of grass shacks on stilts can be seen behind the building. To the left rear is a large sign, "Bar" over one shack; to the right rear is a larger sign, "New Frontier Steak House" over another shack. A helicopter is in the sky above.’

Parents Take Hart

Searle's favorite painting

 

Vauxhall Gardens, 1784, by Thomas Rowlandson (1756–1827), Victoria & Albert Museum.

From Country Life magazine.

Ronald Searle on Vauxhall Gardens, 1784 by Thomas Rowlandson

‘Obsessed as I am with the magical, satirical pen line, I am very much aware of its roots – its forebears, those who created it with genius: Hogarth, Gillray, Rowlandson, Cruikshank. But if I must declare a favourite, I confess that I feel closest to Rowlandson.

'That living line, that freshness of colour, that beautiful reflection of rural nature, all stirred in with a penetrating dissection of character. It all comes together beautifully in Vauxhall Gardens.’

Art critic John McEwen on Rowlandson

'No greater compliment could be paid Rowlandson than being chosen by today’s doyen of ‘the magical satirical pen line’. Rowlandson and Searle have the rare ability to make us laugh outright, yet the ‘living line’ is the key, so an artistic tour de force is chosen. Rowlandson was born and raised in London, but his sensibility was markedly French thanks to his surrogate mother, his Huguenot aunt Jane. ‘French sophistication, elegance and delicacy’ were cited by the art historian John Hayes for Rowlandson attaining English preeminence as a draughtsman in his 18th-century prime. Had he painted in oils, his artistic status would be properly honoured.

As it is, we think of him primarily as a cartoonist and illustrator, professions he found better suited to his convivial taste for drink and gambling. Vauxhall Gardens (now Spring Gardens) were in Kennington. At their height in the 18th century, they opened from 7pm between May and September, a place to be seen, to promenade or take a box, to dine or picnic and listen to music, popular and classical. The one-shilling entrance fee was open to all.

Rowlandson shows Samuel Johnson at the table, with Boswell (left) and Goldsmith (right), Georgina, Duchess of Devonshire and her sister Lady Duncannon (centre) and the future George IV with his married mistress, the actress and author Mary Robinson (right). The masterpiece was lost for 160 years and was bought by a keen-eyed tobacco dealer for £1 from a shop near Walthamstow in 1945. He immediately sold it through Christie’s for 2,600 guineas.

Anthony Quayle

 The Searles were friendly with British actor Anthony Quayle whose birthday is today!

Ronald Searle, artist (1920-2011). Pair of Original Copper Printing Plates Depicting Anthony Quayle as Falstaff. A pair of copper plates, depicting the same image in different states, signed and dated in reverse within the image. Stratford, 1951. Each measuring approximately 11.5" x 9". Some scratching and surface wear. Some glue residue on versos. Very good. From the collection of Judith Adelman. (sold at Heritage Auctions in 2014)

Magazine Illustration Part 5 :

GOOD HOUSEKEEPING magazine (1959) 

Khrushchev

Alternative version

Nikita Khrushchev in New York, 1960 

pencil, pen and brown ink and watercolour

Holiday Magazine, New York, 1960.

Take One Toad

 Some of the original drawings from 'Take One Toad' (1968) have been sold at auction in recent years. They're stunning, large-format, color drawings. The book is a good size too and there are sometimes prints on eBay which don't have the image dissected by the gutter of the book.

See my page dedicated to 'Take One Toad' here

'I Have No Gun But I Can Spit'

'I Have No Gun, But I can Spit'. An Anthology of satirical and abusive verse selected by Kenneth Baker

-Published by Eyre Methuen, London, 1980

Original artwork. 

View a comprehensive gallery of 'Book Covers' by Searle at the link in the list on the right.

 

Animal Farm

Here's a tantalizing prospect: imagine Orwell's 'Animal Farm' illustrated by Searle... he never did it of course but a second-hand bookseller turned up this item - a 1962 edition, Seaerle's own copy, with notations in his hand and a folded sheet with notes. 

Ralph Steadman illustrated a marvelous edition in the 90s but a Searle version would've been something, no? 

Searle the art instructor

 

A fascinating item at auction recently reveals Searle to be a mentor to a fellow artist while incarcerated in Changi Gaol by the Japanese in WWII. I'd never heard of him teaching in this capacity before - it's definitely his hand-writing - but he did give me pointers on sketching when I met him and showed him my sketchbooks.

Searle's own art training was cut short when he enlisted. On the long voyage by sea to Singapore he drew what he encountered - Polish sailors, Mombasa, India and kept drawing as a prisoner. He turned his incarceration into a kind of art school experience, documenting the incidents in the camp, sketching caricatures of fellow inmates and designing theater play backdrops and programs, Christmas cards and also singular 'magazines' that were disseminated between the men.

'Searle (Ronald) British Cartoonist (1920-2011) and Cotterell (Thomas George). A two sided als in blue ink from Searle to Cotterell dated June 14 1945 from Changi Gaol (Singapore) in which he artistically criticises Cotterell's portrait of his wife (watercolour profile on paper 135 x 115mm signed and dated verso '45). Both laminated for preservation, with transcripts.

Note: Both men were Japanese Prisoners of War and were held at Changi Gaol '

Written in June 1945 only months before the end of the war Searle had returned to Changi from his horrific stint up the Malay peninsula on the Death Railway. He couches the critique with a modest take-down of his own abilities then the feedback is necessarily frank and honest.

'The Female Approach' 1949

Original cover art.

 

Saintly

 A St. Trinians piece from an old Chris Beetles catalogue that I don't think I'd ever seen. 

The Admiral and the Con Man

The art director at The New Yorker knew Searle was the right illustrator for this story! (from 2002)

The Mythical Fortune That Fuelled America’s Greatest Fraud

Posing as a British lord, Oscar Hartzell convinced thousands of Americans that they could get a piece of the Sir Francis Drake estate—a multibillion-dollar inheritance that didn’t exist.

 

Searle's influence

The shadow Ronald Searle's style casts over other cartoonists is pervasive. It was said once you've seen his style it's hard to draw any other way. From Mad Magazine's Mort Drucker and Jack Davis to the Disney artists on '101 Dalmatians' and the character design on Pixar's 'Soul' his influence can be detected. Contemporary cartoonists and illustrators such as Peter De Seve, Nick Galifiniakis and Richard Thompson have all publicly doffed their caps to the master.

Here's an Arnold Roth with commentary by Jules Feiffer. Using a cat's tail as a brush may be alluding to the story of Searle doing that as a POW:  a couple of kittens had wandered into Changi gaol and Searle apparently made use of the tails after they were eaten! If Roth had read that anecdote in Searle's book 'To The Kwai and Back' he certainly made a less gruesome gag out of it!

Feiffer commentary: "Arnold had an early period in which he was living in England, and he was trying to be Ronald Searle. And this is very Searle looking. When he got rid of trying to be Searle, he became one of the most original and interesting artist in the business and he remains underappreciated. Arnold is brilliant. He has done covers for The New Yorker and his artwork has appeared in TV Guide, Sports Illustrated and Esquire. He was part of the Harvey Kurtzman crew and his cartoons and illustrations were in the magazines Harvey edited. Arnold has never gotten the attention he deserves. I love this work even if this is still him being very Ronald Searlish. Arnold, over the years, has quietly become one of our most original and evocative cartoonists. And he is blessed with a great wife, Caroline."