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Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Ronald Searle: R.I.P.

UK Artist, St Trinian's Creator Ronald Searle Dies at 91

From the NYT: British cartoonist Ronald Searle, best known for his spiky drawings of the tearaway pupils of the fictional girls school St Trinian's, died in southern France.

Searle, whose anarchic St Trinian's characters spawned a series of movie adaptations, died on December 30 at a hospital near his home in Draguignan, in France's south-eastern Var region.
His spindly schoolgirl creations, which first appeared in 1941, hit the big screen in 1954 as "The Belles of St Trinian's," with Alastair Sim starring in drag as headmistress Millicent Fritton.

Searle was also known for his comic illustrations in a series of 1950s satires on British private school education, written by author Geoffrey Willans, including "Down with Skool" and "How to be Topp."

The books featured the thoughts of schoolboy Nigel Molesworth, and his advice on how to survive the trials of term-time at the crumbling St. Custard's, ruled over by terrifying headmaster Grimes, head boy Grabber and the school dog.

Searle's cartoons also appeared in magazines and newspapers, including Britain's Punch and The New Yorker.

His work was recognized internationally, and he won a number of awards from America's National Cartoonists Society. In France, where he lived since 1961, he was awarded the country's prestigious Legion d'Honneur.

Read the rest of the obituary in the NYT HERE.

Read the Guardian obituary Here.

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