Ronald Searle

This past Wednesday, March 3rd marked the 90th birthday of the great British artist/cartoonist, Ronald Searle.  I'm not going to attempt in this blog to write a history of Searle's work, others have already done wonderful tributes to Searle in their blogs (see http://ronaldsearle.blogspot.com/2010/03/ronald-searle-graphic-master.html) but I did want to honor the man by showing some examples of his work and to talk about how I first came to know of him.

I think my first exposure to him was when I bought the soundtrack to the film "Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines."  Searle had done the artwork for both the one-sheet poster and the soundtrack cover (see image at right with detail below).   I was around 11 when this film was released in 1965 and though I don't think I saw the film until it was later shown on television, I bought the soundtrack (probably from a sale bin) mostly because I was fascinated by Searle's sketchy caricatures of the actors in the film (Stuart Whitman, Sarah Miles, James Fox, Terry Thomas and Gert Frobe).  Going through some of the sketch books I kept in my teens, I can see that at the time, I was heavily influenced by his style.

I think my next exposure to Searle's work came during high school, when the musical "Scrooge" starring Albert Finney was released in the early 1970s.  To promote the film, a book was published about the making of the movie.  The book was a combination of text, stills from the film and artwork by Ronald Searle (Unfortunately, I was unable to find my copy of this book or I would have posted some images from it).

Around the same time that I bought the "Scrooge" book, I bought another book at a library benefit sale, that contained artwork by Ronald Searle.  This book was put out in conjunction with the film "Those Daring Young Men in Their Jaunty Jalopies," which was a sort of follow-up film to the more successful, "Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines."  Although I don't think this film was considered a direct sequel, it did share a couple of the same actors, namely Terry Thomas and Gert Frobe.  The leading man was played by Tony Curtis opposite Susan Hampshire, the lovely star of Disney's "The Three Lives of Thomasina," and the original version of "The Forsyte Saga."

It wasn't until only recently that I learned some background on Ronald Searle.  I knew that he had created the bad school girls of St. Trinian's, which to his dismay, came to be what most people knew him for, but I had not known of his WWII experiences in a Japanese prisoner of war camp.  After hearing about this, and learning that a book had been published containing drawings he made while in captivity, I sought out a copy.  The book is titled "To the Kwai - and Back, War Drawings 1939-1945," and it is an amazing book.  It is also at times gut-wrenching, horrifying and sad.  The images in the book are accompanied by Searle's own account of what happened while in captivity.  Together they add up to an unforgettable portrait of a 21-year old man who lived to tell the tale of a dark period in recent world history, a period that as the veterans of that war (my father was one of them) grow old and die, will soon be relegated to the history books and will sound as far off as those stories we learned in school about the civil war (I have to admit - that last phrase was paraphrased from a James Michener quote in his "Tales of the South Pacific)."

While in captivity, Searle took great risks to create some of these drawings. They only survive because he was helped in hiding them by men who were sick and dying of cholera.  Searle knew that his captors were terrified of the disease and would not dare search the beds of the dying men who were just days away from death.

This sketch was done on a form that Searle and his fellow captors were forced to sign, promising that they would not attempt to escape.

 "Dawn parade."

"Prison headgear, 1944."

"Siam 1943: Man dying of cholera."

A plane drops leaflets over the camp announcing the end of the war (right).

Here is what Searle has to say in his own words about these drawings:

"These drawings were not a means of catharsis.  Circumstances were too basic for that.  But they did at times act as a mental life-belt.  Now, with the perspective and detachment that a gap of forty years or so can achieve, they can be looked on as the graffiti of a condemned man, intending to leave rough witness of his passing through, but who found himself - to his surprise and delight - among the reprieved.  This book - these drawings for what they are - belong to those who were not.

Happy Birthday Ronald Searle.

Garth Williams

Garth Willams (1912-1996) is best known for his illustrations for "Charlotte's Web," "Stuart Little," and the "Little House" books.  So intrinsically are those titles linked with his images, that it is almost impossible to think of one without the other.  In one of my earlier posts, I displayed some of his illustrations from one of my favorite childhood books, "The Tall Book of Make Believe."  Since he has always been one of my favorite illustrators, I've decided to devote this post to more of his work.  The illustrations that I'm including all come from books in my personal collections.

His black and white images in the "Little House," books were created with charcoal and pencil which Williams used to charming effect.  In using these basic materials, it's almost as if the artist wanted us to realize that these were tools that Laura Ingalls Wilder, in her early life of pioneering hardship, might have had at her disposal and could have used to make similar sketches of her life.

Williams was also an expert when it came to using pen and ink as can be seen  in his work for "Stuart Little," and "The Cricket in Times Square."  The sharpness of detail in these images gives the viewer a crisp feeling for what it might be like to see the world from a height of only 5 or 6 inches tall.  In "The Family Under the Bridge," the Newberry Honor book by Natalie Savage Carlson, Williams used pen and ink with a gray wash which was perfect for creating the necessary mood and atmosphere for this story of a hobo who lives under a bridge along the misty banks of the Seine in Paris.

Some of my favorites of Williams' illustrations come from the work he did for a number of different books in the Little Golden Books series. His illustrations for Margaret Wise Brown's "The Friendly Book," are colorful and wonderfully intricate. In this book, Williams gives the viewer an array of marvelous details that makes the reader want to pour over them again and again.  In the book's two page spread on dogs, Williams digs way beyond the text to give the viewer a city populated by all sorts of canine characters. Not only do we get the "Big dogs, Little dogs," and the other dogs that Brown describes, but we get stern looking police dogs, hungry dogs, shiftless dogs, genteel dogs and taxi-driving dogs that Brown doesn't even mention in her text.  In the two page spread on people, he once again goes beyond the text.  Here, Williams supplements Brown's words with all sorts of dogs interacting with the described people. He even throws in a squirrel and a few birds. Taken by themselves, Brown's words are charming and have a nice rhythm to them - "Glad people, Sad people, Slow people, Mad people, Big people, Little people," but when you add in Williams' delightful animals to the page, you get a whole other story taking place. You get dogs chasing runners, dogs chasing men on bicycles, big dogs kissing big ladies, stooped over old men petting tiny dogs.  I've heard it said by many an art director that the job of the illustrator is to take the viewer beyond what is described in the text. Garth Williams was an illustrator who could do this beautifully.

Another of Williams' fondly remembered books is "Mister Dog," also written by Margaret Wise Brown. In this story of Crispin's Crispian, the dog who belonged to himself, Williams captures the cozy life of a dog who lives in a garden in a two-story doghouse.  Looking at these wonderful pictures, the reader can't help but feel envious of the little boy who gets to move in with Crispin's Crispian.

"Baby Animals," a book that I'm sure was a childhood favorite of many a baby-boomer was not only illustrated by Williams, but written by him as well. This book is a good example of one of Williams' distinguishing characteristics - his remarkable ability to depict the texture of animal fur.  Seldom, if ever, has there been such a tactile depiction of fluffiness as what Williams displays in his adorable images of baby animals.

Fortunately many of the books that Garth Williams illustrated are still in print.  For those interested in purchasing any of the books that I have written about, I've provided easy links that will take you to the appropriate Amazon buying page.

Favorites in Pen and Ink

I've always had a fondness for drawings created with pen and ink or scratchboard.  Maybe that's because I've always found drawing with pen and ink somewhat intimidating and I admire those who can do it well.  When working with pen and ink, you not only have to be careful about not spilling or dripping your ink, but you have to have a good plan of where you're going with your drawing.  If your not careful with your crosshatching and shading, you can overdo it and end up with areas that are too dark.  This becomes even more of a problem if your drawing is to be scaled down for publication.

But when a pen and ink or a scratchboard drawing is done well, it can create a feeling of drama, delicacy or even energy. Three of my favorite children's book illustrators who have worked in these mediums are Maurice Sendak, Erik Blegvad and John Schoenherr.

The first Sendak illustrated book that I was ever aware of was one someone gave to my mother when I was very young. It was a little book written by Ruth Krauss called "A Hole is to Dig."  It has since been reissued in combination with another Krauss/Sendak collaboration, "Open House for Butterflies."  Both books are very charming and consist of Krauss's funny definitions like "A hole is to dig," "Dogs are to kiss people," "Snow is to roll in," "Buttons are to keep people warm," all accompanied by Maurice Sendak's wonderful pen and ink illustrations.  As children, my sister and I use to look at this book over and over again.  Many of the two page spreads are filled with details that keep the reader lingering on the page long after the minimal text has been read.

Erik Blegvad is a Danish artist, who even though he has illustrated over a hundred books is relatively unknown in this country.  Maybe I should say he's not a household word like Sendak, but then few illustrators are.  Blegvad also works in pen and ink, sometimes in black and white, but often his drawings are delicately colored with watercolor.  I believe many of his books are out of print but two that I know of are still available: "Around My Room," a book of poems by William Jay Smith, and "Mud Pies and Other Recipes, a Cookbook for Dolls." "Mud Pies..." is a sweet and funny little book with actual recipes on how to combine various elements like mud, leaves, dirt, sand etc. to create meals and desserts for your dolls.  Like Sendak's work in "A Hole is to Dig," Blegvad fills his illustrations with lots of interesting details.  Often there will be little dogs or cats somewhere in his pictures which always include lots of children involved in various activities.

I think my first exposure to Blegvad was from a calendar he created for Woman's Day magazine (which my mom subscribed to) in 1964.  I turned ten years old that year, and Blegvad's calendar captivated me enough that I cut it out of the magazine, strung it together by punching holes in the top margins and tied the pages together with string through the holes.  I still have it and I still love looking at the sweet illustrations.  One thing that I find striking about his illustration of a classroom for the month of May, is that he depicted an integrated classroom, which I think must have been a rather daring thing to do in 1964.

One book that is worth hunting down is his illustrated sketchbook called "Self Portrait: Erik Blegvad," which was published in 1979.  It is out of print but I easily found a used copy online.

An interesting fact is that Erik Blegvad's son, Peter is also an artist whose work "The Book of Leviathan" is a collection of his Levi and Cat's adventures, a comic strip that ran in The Independent on Sunday, a British newspaper.

One of my all time favorite books as a child was "Rascal" by Sterling North, based on North's youthful experiences in raising a wild raccoon.  The illustrations in it by John Schoenherr, which I believe are done in scratchboard, wonderfully evoke the WWI era in which the story takes place.  I love this portrait of the young Sterling with Rascal on his shoulder, framed in an oval that reminds the viewer of a turn of the century photograph.  And the picture of Sterling reading a book while sitting in a tree with Rascal conked out on a higher limb is one of my favorites.

Schoenherr also works in other mediums including watercolor.  He won the Caldecott Medal for his illustrations created for Jane Yolen's "Owl Moon," and also wrote and illustrated "Rebel," a story of a gosling who gets separated from his mother.  Interestingly, Schoenherr, like Blegvad, also has a son who is an illustrator.  John's son, Ian Schoenherr illustrated "Newf," by Marie Killilea and many others including "Read It, Don't Eat It," one of several that he also wrote.

By the way, Rascal was reissued a few years ago and the reproductions in it were terrible, many of the fine detail lines were missing, choked out by the black ink.  They looked like copies made from poor copies.  If you're interested in seeing these illustrations, look for an older copy of this book.  Sadly, the same thing seems to have happened with another book illustrated by Schoenherr, "Incident at Hawk's Hill," by Allan W. Eckert.  My copy of this book was purchased in 1996.  I have not seen earlier editions so I don't have anything to compare them to, but the illustrations in my copy are very dark and muddy looking, I doubt that this is the way that they were meant to look.