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.