WITH an exhibition ‘Ronald Searle Remembered’
St. James’s art dealer Chris Beetles, London’s premier specialist in cartoons,
pays tribute to the man considered by many the greatest cartoonist of the 20th
century.
Searle died at the end of last year at the age
of 91 leaving a huge legacy of witty and fluently crafted images, 400 of which
will on sale at the gallery in Ryder Street SW1 from May 22 to June 9.
The artist’s most well known and best-loved creations were the naughty schoolgirls of St.
Trinians and Molesworth and while these provide the highlights of the most comprehensive
survey to date of Searle’s work Chris Beetles also shows a more serious side,
such as the clandestine drawings he did while an inmate of the notorious
Japanese prisoner-of-war camp Changi Gaol.
Political and literary issues are also explored
and recorded in a splendid, fully illustrated catalogue which contains freshly
researched data about a remarkable artist and a remarkable man.