Article by JMB
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Kaye Webb, Ronald Searle’s wife, is a journalist. In the late '40s, her
press reports duly illustrated by her husband were well known and appreciated.
A wise editor asked the couple what project would personally please them most
for a book to be published. Their shared answer was Paris. So they spent working
holidays in the city in May 1950; and the book Paris Sketchbook was launched
by The Saturn Press in the next Christmas season.
A revised and enlarged edition of Paris Sketchbook was published
by Perpetua Books, in London in 1957. This book was republished in the USA by
George Braziller in 1958.
In 1949 Punch nominated Searle to its theatre column. He suited so
well to the job that he kept it for twelve years. He made frequent trips to
Paris, as Punch also reviewed Paris theater new plays.
A collection of these Paris theater drawings was exhibited at Gallery
Martine Gossieaux, from September 21st to December 9th 2000.
Its sumptuous catalogue: Le théâtre à Paris (1954-1962) was printed as a
500 copies limited edition. The cover drawing shows Pierre Brasseur as "Ornifle"
in the eponymous play in 1955.
At left: Bernard Blier and Edwige Feuillère in the play "Lucy
Crown" in 1962. At right: Louis de Funès in the play "La Grosse Valse" in 1962
Ronald Searle definitely left England and his wife. He arrived in Paris
on September 10th 1961 and settled at Monica Koenig-Stirling’s. She
was a British born artist, ballet and theatre designer. Searle met her for the
first time in 1958, during one of his stays in Paris for Punch theatre
column. As soon as Searle’s divorce was officially recorded, Monica became his second
wife in June 1967.
Pardong M’sieur was published by Editions Denoël
in Paris in early 1965. These Searle’s cartoons humorously lampoon the French
way of life.
For Reader’s Digest, Searle illustrated an abridged version of Victor
Hugo’s Notre Dame de Paris which was first published as The Hunchback
of Notre-Dame in the USA in 1966, and then republished by the French branch
in 1968.
Hommage à Toulouse-Lautrec was published by Editions
Empreinte in Paris in 1969. Roland Topor wrote a preface for it. The printing
was 4000 copies, plus 200 numbered and signed copies printed on Vélin d’Arches
paper. Those ones had an original set of 4 lithographs. An extra portfolio of 6
other lithographs was added to the 70 first copies.
Titled The Second Coming of Toulouse-Lautrec, this book was
republished by Weidenfeld & Nicolson in London in 1970. The German version:
Die Wiederkehr des Toulouse-Lautrec, was republished by Verlag Kurt
Desch in Munich in 1971. The book Die Mädchen von Montmartre und St. Pauli,
that was published by Rowohlt in Hamburg in 1980, contains some of these
drawings.
Searle was always
interested in the work of his fellow graphic artists. After reading the first
issue of Haute Societé, a sophisticated French quarterly magazine
containing many cartoons, he wrote: “I wish we had a magazine like it here!” His
drawing and sentence were published in the next issue in September 1960.
Searle joined
the "Société Protectrice de l’Humour" [Society for
the Protection of Humor] founded by Desclozeaux with Puig Rosado and Bonnot.
From 1969 he participated in the cartoon exhibitions the S.P.H. organized in
Avignon. In 1969 he asked the French cartoonist Bosc to sell him one cartoon.
Bosc answered he would prefer to receive a drawing from the book Filles de Hamburg
and he sent his latest book out of which he could choose the one he liked best.
Searle offered him a new work, made after his original drawings, explaining
that his girls were drawn in a sketchbook he couldn’t tear a page off. Searle
and his wife Monica chose the cartoon published page 72-73 in Bosc book Je
t’aime.
In July 1971 Searle received two awards: the "Prize of Humour S.P.H"
and the "Avignon City Medal". A few months later, he received the "Great
Prize for Black Humour / Grandville". In 1972 he was awarded the
"Prize Charles Huard for Press Cartoons". In the same year, crowning
these French distinctions, the Bibliothèque Nationale [National Library] invited
him to show a personal retrospective at the Cabinet des Estampes in 1973. Of
course Searle agreed and became the first non-French living artist to be
honored that way by this institution. Unfortunately, for economical reasons,
the B.N. suggested that the catalog was just a list on sheets of paper. Searle’s
cartoonist friend Jean-Pierre Desclozeaux was outraged, and so as to have a
proper, fully illustrated and well documented catalog printed, he founded the
association "Les Amis de Ronald Searle" [Searle’s Friends] which collected
funds and brought life to this book. 259 works were on display at the B.N. from
January 26th to late March 1973.
The drawing reproduced on the front cover of the catalogue (here above)
is one the three works stolen during the exhibition. The Bibliothèque Nationale
having failed to insure itself against such troubles was obliged to acquire
these works from the artist, who thus came to be officially “represented in the
Bibliothèque Nationale”, as he later put it, “by three phantom pictures”.
First published by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich in New York and by
Weidenfeld & Nicolson in London in 1977, Paris! Paris! is a novel
size book co-signed by the American novelist Irwin Shaw and by Ronald Searle. But
this book was not done in collaboration at all. It may be described as a mere
simultaneity of two points of view, since Shaw’s text is an awkward mixture of
clichés and self-serving anecdotes, whereas Searle’s drawings are always humorously
relevant and clever.
Paris! Paris! was translated into French
and published by Editions Plon in Paris in November 1977. The foreword of this
edition precisely states: “Mr. Searle did not read my text until he sends his
drawings, and I told him about his contribution after his drawings delivery”.
Paris! Paris! was translated into German
by Katharina Ronte and published by Fritz Molden in Germany, Austria and Switzerland
in 1980. It was then published as a pocketbook in Germany by Wilhelm Heyne in
1982, and by Goldmann in 1986.
Disappointed by the promiscuity he had to undergo in Paris! Paris!,
Searle wanted to edit his drawings in a personal book in a larger format. These
works appear in Ah Yes, I Remember it Well....: Paris, 1961-75,
published by Pavilion Books in London in 1987 and published by Salem House in
the USA in 1988. Titled Ah oui, je m’en souviens très bien… Paris
1961-1975, it was published by Editions Albin Michel in Paris in
1988. About these drawings, the artist said they wished "to get what one feels
when living in Paris, rather than what one can imagine about it."
This cityscape
of Paris, published on the endpapers, is a composite creation by the artist. A
large number of his friends are saluted by name here. Among them are the French
graphic artists Desclozeaux, Puig Rosado, Topor, André François, Claude Favard
(aka Bonnot), and Tim; German graphic artists Loriot and H.G. Rauch; printer
lithographer and gallery owner Michel Cassé; writers Michel Ragon, Remo
Forlani, and Pierre Bourgeade; journalist Mary Blume; showmen, Jacques Fabri and
Pierre Etaix; medical professor Léon Schwartzenberg, an oncologist who treated Searle’s
wife (here she too is mentioned as Mô, her nickname); director
of the French Mint Pierre Dehaye; owner of the Restaurant des
Beaux-Arts Marcelle Methlin.
On September 10th 1975, Searle and his wife definitely left Paris
and settled in Tourtour, a calm village in the mountains of Provence.
The book Carnet de croquis [Sketchbook], subtitled "The
Pleasure of the Line", was published by Editions La Nompareille in Paris
in 1992. It is an intimate vision of the artist's work. For the reader, Searle
leaves his studio’s door ajar. He rightly says in his preface: “A perfect successful
drawing, must give the feeling it was done effortlessly. It is the visible part
of the iceberg. These pages show a fraction of the mass lying below.”
In 1995, Searle was offered the opportunity of contributing editorial
drawings to the French national newspaper Le Monde. 114 of these drawings
are gathered in the book Ronald Searle dans Le Monde published by Le
Cherche Midi Editeur in Paris in 1998.
At right, the above cartoon refers to the death of a 17 year man, of Comorian origin, who was shot by three National Front billposters in Marseilles on February 21st
1995. It is the only drawing with an additional color in this book.
As well as few other cartoons, these four drawings will not be reprinted
in the book published in the USA four years later.
Ronald Searle in Le Monde was published by
University of Chicago Press in 2002. This book has the same size and lay-out.
Its sections are similar: Politics, Europe, Africa, Other Countries, Money,
Society Games, War and Peace, Some Angels. But the preface (3 pages) and the
Epilogue section with 5 drawings does not exist in the French edition.
In his foreword, Searle wrote about Le Monde: “Drawings for this
space are not solicited. There is no editorial pressure or guidance. It is left
to the artist to seek and express his point of view. The editor either accepts
it or returns the drawing. It is a tough exercise and a challenging one. Fortunately
the effort involved remains hidden from the reader – but not the point of
view.”
We have chosen to show these cartoons as they are not in the French
book. Out of the 127 drawings of this American edition, 30 were not published
in the French edition
See you soon with Ronald Searle and all his various and famous animals
article by JMB
We thank Mr. Alain Damman for his kind permission to reproduce those two
documents from Bosc’s archives here.
