Monday, December 24, 2018

Ronald Searle: Commercial Christmas

Many of Ronald Searle's Christmas illustrations captured a special luminous joy, but he could also be critical of the holiday's commercialism. Three unpublished illustrations for a circa 1960 Holiday magazine article entitled "Christmas Lifemanship" were apparently owned by Hilary Knight, whose conception of Eloise was somewhat influenced by Searle's devilish St. Trinian's girls. The watercolors were sold off at Bonham's earlier this month. Unfortunately, only one of the three is illustrated in the catalogue.

Ronald Searle
Commercial Christmas
from Christmas Lifemanship
Holiday,
unpublished, c. 1960

Ronald Searle
Bonhams, December 5, 2018



Note:  If you haven't seen the Christmas cards that Ronald Searle sent to his friends, you're in for a real treat. They're collected on Perpetua, the Ronald Searle Tribute blog, here. See what I mean by "luminous joy?"

I would love to hear from the buyer of this lot, or from anyone who might have photographed the other two drawings in this suite while they were at Bonhams.



Quick Links to the Attempted Bloggery Archives:

Ronald Searle

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