News

Ronald Searle: 1920–2011

8 January 2012

"Ronald Searle, the British cartoonist and caricaturist whose outlandishly witty illustrations for books, magazine covers, newspaper editorial pages and advertisements helped define postwar graphic humor, died on Friday, December 30th in Draguignan, in southeastern France, where he lived. He was 91.

"His family said in a statement that he had died in his sleep after a short illness. 

"Lampooning the foibles of the English class system as well as clerics, politicians and even other artists, Mr. Searle was often described as a latter-day version of the 18th-century British graphic satirist William Hogarth. His cartoons combined an ear for linguistic nuance with a caustic pen and brush. With just a few well-placed lines, he pierced the facades of his targets without resorting to ridicule or rancor."

—Steve Heller, an excerpt from the full obituary in The New York Times

There is a blog for Ronald Searle here, which contains images, references and links to many other obituaries, including The Guardian, The Independent, Creative Review, Eye Magazine ...

His war drawings are collected here at the Imperial War Museums site.