Ronald Searle's Painting Pig

Ronald Searle, Ausstellung Ronald Searle 11.Oktober - 10.November 1973, Galerie Wolfgang Gurlitt, München. Original Art for Poster. Private Collection.

For a while in the 1960's, Ronald Searle was represented regularly by several galleries in different European cities. Galerie La Pochade showed his work in Paris starting in 1966. The same year, Wolfgang Gurlitt started showing his work in Linz at his Neue Galerie, and the following year in Munich at Galerie Wolfgang Gurlitt. According to John Locke, Searle's American agent at the time, his relationship with the Galerie La Pochade ended in a dispute over some $20,000 they owed him. This would have been around 1971 or later.

The Gurlitt gallery published a catalogue of Searle's prints in 1971 and it remains the only authoritative source on Searle's lithographs from 1966 to 1971. They were still exhibiting his work in  the fall of 1973 when this extraordinary ink illustration was created for an exhibition poster. I believe this is unusual. Typically Searle would have taken a contemporary image he was already working on with his lithographer, usually Michel Cassé in Paris. When the lithograph was completed, he would create a promotional poster version, sometimes changing the orientation and always adding his unmistakeable lettering. The poster might be issued in an edition of anywhere from 25 to 100, generally unsigned and unnumbered, although on occasion in a large run the first 25 might be signed and numbered, and sometimes there were an additional ten artist's proofs identified with roman numerals. This time, though, he created an original drawing specifically for the exhibition poster and, as usual, it is extraordinary.







Ronald Searle, Ausstellung Ronald Searle 11.Oktober - 10.November 1973, Galerie Wolfgang Gurlitt, München. Exhibition Poster.

http://ronaldsearle.blogspot.com/2013/03/pigs.html

Ronald Searle, Ausstellung Ronald Searle 11.Oktober - 10.November 1973, Galerie Wolfgang Gurlitt, München. Original Art for Poster. Private Collection.

Note:  Perpetua, Matt Jones's indispensable Ronald Searle tribute blog, recently published a very exhaustive post on Searle's pigs. Go the whole hog and be sure not to miss it.

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