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Inspiration from Artists Week 86 :Featuring Artists Mary Carlton and Ronald Searle .
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Posted
Brilliant presentation - just one tiny detail: I can't help quibbles; it's a character flaw, but there it is: I have worse; it's CBE, not CBI.
Leaping over that one, though, and returning to the "brilliant" bit, yes: he was a fine artist, and the indifference shown to him by the art establishment in Britain was shameful and ignorant; is it any wonder that some of us despise the majority of English (most of them were) art critics, who from Ruskin downwards plagued their profession with stultifying snobbery?
I was familiar with his work from Changi, and of course the St Trinian's images - I had seen only a few of the other images in Lew's presentation. Searle may have become tired of St Trinian's - and if it's all some people knew of his work, that's not surprising: but I think it was wonderful, and it always made me cackle. He seems to have been a great deal less bitter about his treatment at the hands of the Japanese military that I suspect the great majority of us could have been: I knew a former prisoner of the Japanese - who may even have known Searle - and though he was one of the kindest of men (well, for an ex-Lieutenant Colonel), his anger for and disgust of them never left him.
I didn't know that he illustrated the Eichmann trial - but I recognize the pen portrait of Dr Servatius in the illustrations shown: the bulky German lawyer who defended war criminals at Nuremberg, and Eichmann years later - a losing brief if ever there was one...
A bit of Thelwell wouldn't come amiss, either, as a suggestion for the future. Almost pure entertainment with Thelwell; he may have had a darker history too, it's the same generation; it would be interesting to delve into his work to find out: I don't remember any grimmer themes.
Posted
Yes, of course it's CBE...sorry for the typo. Sylvia, I have a vast number of Searle's drawings on my PC, but I couldn't find the one you mentioned. But his output was huge, I find images I hadn't seen before all the time. It may pop up, it does however, sound like a Thelwell to me.
As Alan commented Searle has various styles. In the world of illustration there's a thing known as 'scribble-style'. It's where the artist uses the minimum number of lines to get his message across, it was particularly popular in France. Searle was a master of this...look at the drawing below...the woman barely has a face, but the whole drawing is crammed with character. Done well, it persuades the viewer's mind to fill in the blanks.
He also used a more naturalist style on some projects, here's a couple from a book he produced on London.
Many of these books are not intended to be humorous, he's just striving to get the 'feel' of the place rather than the accuracy you might get in an architectural drawing. For me, that's infinitely more preferable. It's the character that grabs my attention, whether he's drawing a drunk or St Paul's Cathedral.
The last pic above is his homage to Hockney's 'a bigger splash'.
He also used a more naturalist style on some projects, here's a couple from a book he produced on London.
Many of these books are not intended to be humorous, he's just striving to get the 'feel' of the place rather than the accuracy you might get in an architectural drawing. For me, that's infinitely more preferable. It's the character that grabs my attention, whether he's drawing a drunk or St Paul's Cathedral.
The last pic above is his homage to Hockney's 'a bigger splash'.
I'll end with a drawing that probably wouldn't get into children's books today....
