Monday, January 30, 2012

Ronald Searle (1920 - 2011)

The legendary cartoonist/illustrator, Ronald Searle, passed away late last year.

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I received a note from Chuck Pyle shortly after Searle's death:

"As archivist of our illustrated world, I was hoping that you might be able to pop up a post on Ronald Searle, who just passed away. One of my great heroes. There is a BIG hole in the fabric with his loss."

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How true. No doubt hundreds, perhaps thousands of artists and certainly many millions of fans worldwide, who have been touched by Searle's work, are saddened by the loss of this brilliant and prolific creator.

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A quick search on Flickr turns up hundreds of scans of Searle's work, many from publications and books long out of print - all of them wonderful and inspiring.

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To that collection, I have added a few more, presented here today for your viewing pleasure.

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Searle had no bigger fan than Matt Jones, a story artist at Disney, who has created an extensive Ronald Searle blog site.

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His touching tribute to Searle contains links to many obituaries for the artist from major media outlets.

3 comments:

  1. So pleased to see this post-I'll link to it. Nice to see a couple images unfamiliar to me too :)

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  2. Well, nothing can be said that hasn't been said already, but there is one thing that EVERYONE shouldknow about or have on the bookshelf and that is the book of the sketches and work he did when a POW in Changi prison during WWII.
    it's tough stuff, not exactly PC for the classroom these days, but one of the most important bodies of work to come out of the 20th century. Certainly if any young artists think he only did wacky cartoons this will set you straight.

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  3. The fellow with the nightgown and cap and candle looks eerily like Sir John A. Macdonald, our first Prime Minister.

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