↧
Ronald Searle draws the Scrooge title sequence
↧
The Soul of Searle
It's wonderful to see my old boss Pete Docter of Pixar Animation proclaiming Ronald Searle as a key influence on the design of his new film 'Soul'. In an August 2020 interview with 3D World magazine he is quoted:
The human world of the film marks a departure in the usual style of the studio from large, cartoon eyes to small eyes set in exaggerated features with long limbs, angular elbows and pointy feet - all hallmarks of Searle's style.
Pete, I heard that one of my favorite illustrators, Ronald Searle, was part of the inspiration for the look of the film. How did his work influence you?
PETE DOCTER: Pixar has always been fighting against the idea of a house style, but we do kind of have kind of have one. And so, Dana and I talked about why it be great to buck that somehow, so that the characters in this movie couldn't just be airlifted into "Toy Story" or "Finding Nemo" or one of the other films. We wanted to find our own design sense, and I think we succeeded. There are probably people that still will say, "Oh, it's very Pixar." But if you look at Carl from "Up," he's two heads tall; he's this big block. And Joe has, I think seven and a half or so, much closer to real human proportions. What we really pulled from Searle are those wonderfully stretched proportions, thin, spindly arms and legs, and kind of stockier bodies and he just fit really well with the look we were after. Jazz also played a huge influence in the design of New York City. It comes with its own visual sense, like those great album covers from the '60s. So, we tried to pull that into the movie as well.
~rogerebert.com
In a piece published at the Writing Studio the film-makers cite Searle and Disney's '101 Dalmatians' as inspiration. Searle, of course, was an un-credited source of inspiration on that film too consulting with the animators and production designer Ken Anderson. (see my post on that subject here)
Filmmakers’ approach to the film and the characters’ performances was inspired in part by two diverse influences: the art of English artist and satirical cartoonist Ronald Searle, and the animation from Disney’s 1961 animated classic “101 Dalmatians.” Says animation supervisor Jude Brownbill, “Searle and ‘101 Dalmatians’ influenced the look and feel of ‘Soul’ in almost every department—from the imperfect shape of buildings, furniture and props, to the number of folds on a characters’ clothing. For animation, Searle’s influence inspired bold and direct posing within clear compositions that lead the viewer’s eye through the scene. Studying ‘101 Dalmatians’ reinforced the importance of laying out one acting idea at a time and holding within key poses to allow important moments to be read more clearly.”
Early concept art shows the artists working with a Searle-esque line quality.
artist: Nancy Tsang
artist: Camilo Castro
Art director Daniel Lopez Muñoz on designing Joe Gardner with Searle in mind.
Disney animator Milt Kahl’s influence can be seen in the way Joe seems inspired by Roger from 101 Dalmatians, but the influence of British illustrator Ronald Searle can be seen in the character designs as well.
It’s so great that you noticed that. I haven’t actually discussed that with anybody when I was designing Joe. You have the character Roger in 101 Dalmatians and he is obviously a very classic, white character from a Disney film, but I really wanted to find a new character that could live on the way that character did, so there are certainly some influences there, but the artist I really narrowed my sights on was Searle. He had an incredible eye for representing people’s personalities and their interior persona onto a caricature in a wonderful, masterful way. He hadn’t done that many representations of people of color. Most of his work is of the white people surrounding him in England. We got inspiration from him, but had to find our own way, thinking of his shapes and angles, in creating the diverse characters in the New York cityscape.
'Dancers, Harlem' from Searle's NYC sketchbook
Although Searle made his reputation lampooning stuffy, white British people he did, in fact, portray Black characters often, most notably when he first visited America in the late fifties and explored NYC with his sketchbook. In an interview he professed his fascination with the city:
"in between dusk and dawn I am out gathering stuff for Punch.I gather that the first batch arrived safely
and that they are going to start off with one big drawing as a double-spread and follow it each week or
so with single pages or double spreads. I'm expecting to get off tomorrow another packet . . . Central Park, Chinatown, Harlem, perhaps even the Bowery. I may have to go back there for a bit more material. It's exhausting I must confess but I still enjoy drawing Manhattan almost as much as Paris."
and that they are going to start off with one big drawing as a double-spread and follow it each week or
so with single pages or double spreads. I'm expecting to get off tomorrow another packet . . . Central Park, Chinatown, Harlem, perhaps even the Bowery. I may have to go back there for a bit more material. It's exhausting I must confess but I still enjoy drawing Manhattan almost as much as Paris."
'Zanzibar Club, Harlem' from Searle's NYC sketchbook
'Savoy Dance Hall, Harlem' June. 1957
Searle's first wife, Kaye Webb, related to her readers “The other night we ventured down to Harlem to a famous dance hall where we heard some wonderful jazz and saw the floor literally rocking with the enthusiasm of the dancers. After that we went on a tour
of Harlem nightclubs, finishing up in Count Basie’s bar eating southern fried chicken at three in the morning.”
'Count Basie's Bar, Harlem' from Searle's NYC sketchbook
In 1960 Searle travelled to the south to cover the New Orleans jazz scene for HOLIDAY magazine.
'Sweet Emma Barrett' from Searle's New Orleans sketchbook
On another reportage assignment in Atlantic City Searle captured the visitors to the Boardwalk
Of course the cat in the film has a direct correlation to Searle's cats.
Cat design by Jason Deamer
↧
↧
Searle's Favorite Painting
One of the 20th century's greatest cartoonists chose his favourite painting for Country Life.
This week, we delve into the Country Life archive for our My Favourite Painting column — back to 2010 when we spoke to cartoonist Ronald Searle as he approached his 90th birthday. Mr Searle died on December 30, 2011, at the age of 91.
Ronald Searle on Vauxhall Gardens, 1784 by Thomas Rowlandson
‘Obsessed as I am with the magical, satirical pen line, I am very much aware of its roots – its forebears, those who created it with genius: Hogarth, Gillray, Rowlandson, Cruikshank. But if I must declare a favourite, I confess that I feel closest to Rowlandson.
‘That living line, that freshness of colour, that beautiful reflection of rural nature, all stirred in with a penetrating dissection of character. It all comes together beautifully in Vauxhall Gardens.’
From Country Life
↧
March 3 Ronald Searle's birthday!
Thee exhibition at the Wilhelm Busch mseum, Hanover celebrating the centenary of Searle's birth was delayed last year due to Covid but is now open through May. There's a focus on different aspects of Searle's career including animation.
↧
Ronald Searle NEW BOOK preview
The exhibition celebrating the centenary of Ronald Searle's birth runs through the end of May 2021 at the Museum Wilhelm Busch, das Deutsche Museum für Karikatur und Zeichenkunst in Hanover, Germany
↧
↧
Summer of Searle
I'm celebrating Searle's reportage work for HOLIDAY magazine on Instagram at the Art of Ronald Searle account here.
↧
Village Life
If you're ever in the haute-Provence region near Draguignan be sure to make the drive to Tourtour the village where Ronald Searle lived- it's worth the trip. The visitor's website had been updated with an online version of the exhibition that displayed Ronald's drawings for the village magazine Lou Troumeptoun. See it here
More on 'the village in the sky' Tourtour here
↧
The Rake's Progress pt.3
The British Museum website has steadily uploaded images of prints and drawings from its collections including the Ronald Searle material. I was able to visit the museum and look through the original drawings of 'The Rake's progress' in 2009 but time was limited and I couldn't request to see everything. However the website turns up this fascinating artifact-
Searle's rough draft sketchbook in which he compiled the sketches with the finished printed cartoons. It's insightful to see how Searle altered the compositions between the rough and the final image.
(Click on an image to go through them full screen)
↧
Humbug!
In 1959 Searle and his first wife Kaye Webb planned an animated version of Dicken's classic ' A Christmas Carol'. Of course this was long before Richard Williams' award-winning version from 1971 and Robert Zemeckis' mo-cap version in 2009 and even predates UPA's 'Mr Magoo's Christmas Carol' in 1962.
They teamed up with American animation director Dave Hilberman who Ronald had worked with in 1957 on "Energetically Yours' - a 13 minute long film celebrating Standard Oil's centenary.
A script was commissioned by British playwright Christopher Fry (Ronald had done the jacket illustration for Fry's 1951 publication of his verse play 'A Sleep of Prisoners').
I bought a copy of the script at auction several years ago and it is illustrated with Searle sketches. The story was made more 'animation-friendly' with the addition of a humorous mouse.
I dug out Kaye Webb's correspondence on the production from her archive in the UK. She was effectively producing the film and lined up Alec Guinness to play Scrooge (he would later portray Jacob Marley in the 1970 live-action film by Ronald Name which featured a title sequence designed by Searle).
Julie Andrews was pegged to play Belle with John Gielgud as as Christmas Past, Stanley Hollow as Christmas Present, Peter Finch as Scrooge's nephew and John as Bob Cratchit. Webb wrote to Charles Laughton asking him to play Fezziwig.
It was never made but the drawings were later published in a new edition of the novel (read more on that here) and Searle's canny agent, John Locke' sold them to LIFE magazine which published a lavish spread in the December 19th, 1960 edition. Can you imagine Searle's version in animation?! I've assembled the surviving artwork here along with sketches from the script of the project.
See more about the unfinished production here:
↧
↧
Remembering Ronald Searle
Remembering Ronald ten years after his death on December 30th, 2011 at 91 years old. View photos of him throughout his life here
↧
It Must Be True
IT MUST BE TRUE"It was all in the papers"
Written by Denys Parsons & illustrated by Searle
Published by Macdonald, London, 1952 (fourth imp. March 1953
'Denys Parsons was the undisputed king of the misprint and over the years he compiled many best-selling volumes. It Must Be True brings together the very best of these timeless clangers dredged from the daily press across the English-speaking universe from the Berkhamsted Gazette to the Bulawayo Chronicle. Including both bizarre accidents of typesetting and delightful editorial bungles, most of the mishaps bring a hilarious unintentional new meaning, while others allow an inspired breed of nonsense to reign for a brief but glorious moment.'
It seems these books by Parsons proved popular and the publisher, Macdonald, put out several collections with illustrations by the best of the day including Haro and Anton (whose early influence on Searle's style can be detected).
Before the Parsons books Searle illustrated'This England' published by Turnstile Press in 1949 -'a collection of newspaper cuttings, submitted by readers and published each week in The New Statesman and Nation'.
↧
American Gothic
Searle's 'Atlantic City' sketchbook.
Searle's 'Catskills' sketchbook.
Searle's 'Hawaii' sketchbook.
↧
l'amour c'est...
Hand-written credits by Searle.
Réal : Jean-Daniel Pollet
Scén : Rémo Forlani
Scén+ :J.D. Pollet
Genre : Comédie
Producteur : Anatole Dauman
Musique de : Jean-Jacques Debout
Photo de : Jean-Jacques Rochut
Distributeur : Argos Films
Dialogue de : Rémo Forlani
↧
↧
TV guide
Interior spot illustration added to the TV guide section here
(Offensive stereotypes portraying offensive TV shows published Dec. 10th, 1977)
↧
Article 0
'Self Portrait' 1949 (Tate museum)
Photograph by Wolfgang Suschitzky, 1946
I'd love to identify the artwork on the easel; looks like a depiction of horses.
↧
Jazz Man
Sketches of 'The King of New Orleans Jazz' Al Hirt found during research on my book 'Ronald Searle's America'.
Sketchbook pages courtesy of Chris Beetles Gallery, London.
Searle was on assignment in New Orleans for HOLIDAY magazine.
I found the original in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery at the Smithsonian and they kindly provided a hi-res image for the book. The reproduction in HOLIDAY magazine omitted Searle's notation 'Al Hirt at Dan's Pier 600, New Orleans'.
↧
Recent finds
Ronald Searle Slightly Foxed But Still Desirable: the wicked world of book collecting "Full sheep of indeterminate age"
'In the gardens of the Palais Royals, Paris' (1979)
'Farm, Ashley Falls' (April, 1963)
'Hail, hail to thee Great Golden Snail' (1968)
'Insect Play'
'Paraguayan Dictator' HOLIDAY magazine (1969)
'The Stalls'
'The Mourners Mourned'
Hello Ronald
British cartoonist Ronald Searle (1920 - 2011), the creator of the St Trinian's School cartoons, gets a surprise visit from actress Hattie Jacques (1922 - 1980) at his studio in Bayswater, September 1952. Jacques is appearing in the' revue 'The Bells of St Martins' at the St Martin's Theatre, as a St Trinian's schoolgirl. (Photo by George Konig
↧
↧
Molesworth redux
Interview here with my old friend & fellow Searle enthusiast lei Meyer who has done the Searle-esque illustrations for a new Molesworth book!
↧
The Belles of St. Trinian's
Title sequence for 'The Belles of St. Trinians' (1954) directed by Frank Launder.
Poster Rough
↧
Eamonn McCabe
Photographer and picture editor Eamonn McCabe passed away last week. He was friends with Searle and photographed him around the time of his 90th birthday which were also published not long after with his obituary.
McCabe's book on Artists and their studios has page on Searle
↧