I've never made a secret of the fact that I'm a huge fan of Ronald Searle's work, and St Trinian's in particular- the first post I did about it led to the words "stocking tops" becoming the top search leading people to this page. But despite how much people- self included- want to be the bloodthirsty, devious little (and adolescent) monsters who were the heroines of those books(and God knows, I like seeing girls wielding weapons and whacking their antagonists), the artist himself has never been as well appreciated as he should, IMO, be. Hence the cartoon above, which sums it up more or less perfectly.So, onwards to the point of this post- the pictures.
"I'll just die, then you will be sorry."
Ronald Searle does a New Yorker cover! Just like one of my other favourites, Michael Sowa!
The spindly limbs and shambolic, chaotic lines of his characters' figures kept me hooked to his work even when it wasn't a set of cartoons about a pack of cheerfully weird, murder-happy schoolgirls (the younger they are, the more murderous they turn out to be).
I had to put the last two pictures above into this post- they are illustrations Searle drew as an accompaniment to an article by Peter Mayle (whose accounts of Provence, where he and Mr Searle both live, are among the best things I've ever read). For more, I suggest checking out ronaldsearle.blogspot.com, which is a tribute blog that is brilliant.
4 comments:
Your Searle love makes me happy. That is all.
Love Love Love him! Superb post celebrating someone's work that often goes undetected...
^ so glad to see fellow Searle lovers! though I've found appreciation of his art in the oddest of people, including a cranky old lawyer who hung Searle caricatures of TS Eliot, among others, on the walls of his very messy house.
Thanks for the link :)
Matt Jones
ronaldsearle.blogspot.com
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