JKR

With the passing of Ronald Searle we lose one of our great creative talents, best visual storytellers and as many of his contemporaries would attest, the finest British cartoonist of the past century. It’s unsurprising that all the obituaries headline the work that defined him: his creation of the little monsters of St. Trinian’s and later, the semi-literate Molesworth of St. Custard’s boys’ school. Indeed, my first thought on hearing of his passing was the line he put into the mouth of light-footed weed Basil Fotherington-Thomas “Hello clouds, hello sky.” That’s him skipping below…

But, like a musician who has become doomed to only be remembered for his greatest hit, short handing Searle’s body of work to little monsters in a school setting is to miss much other wonderful work. So I thought it would be nice to share a small sample of the breadth of his work beyond the school gates…

As a POW forced to build railways in Thailand, a six stone malarial Searle would end a sixteen hour day of hard labour by following a compulsion to record his experiences, the act of which was punishable by death if discovered. The dark world he experienced is generally seen to have influenced and informed all of his post-war illustration.

Searle’s work for Lemon Hart creates a character who could be the prototype for the Pimm’s man and other such archetypes.

Two from a series of beautiful drawings he made of London characters.

A typically manic cover for Graphis.

And two lovely covers for Punch, tipping a hat to his hero Picasso.

I think it would be trite to force a point ‘relevant for branding’ into this post about Searle’s work. Although he certainly shows that idiosyncrasy of style and content are rather timeless and fashion proof qualities in visual communication.

Finally, let’s leave the last word to his work – with a page from Molesworth’s insights. Because although Searle himself felt pigeonholed by his school based creations, looking from afar, they are quite some pigeonhole to occupy.