George Booth: Calling Howard in London

A drawing sold last month on eBay shows cartoonist George Booth following his muse to unusual places. The cartoon depicts a transatlantic phone conversation in which three speakers, if that's indeed the correct term, chat with an unseen man in London named Howard.

The page is given over almost entirely to long columns of text in three conjoined word balloons. Drawings of the three speaking characters are pieced together in patches at the bottom. 

The patches impart a seeming third dimension to the drawing.

It isn't clear why the word balloons of three different speakers should be connected in this manner:

Pinholes are in each corner, apparently. There is a copyright symbol by the signature.

The ink of the unruly 1978 work has faded. The art is framed and matted.

Printer's notations are present including "Note / Do not let the line work break up." Hinges, marked Horan Engr. Co. (of Manhattan), are in place.

How commendable of the Princeton framer to use a date stamp!

The eBay listing sold on November 12.

George Booth
eBay listing ended November 12, 2025

https://www.ebay.com/itm/267296486978?itmmeta=01KBBAC7ZQTZ948577XF2MW941&hash=item3e3c1cb642

George Booth
eBay item description

Note:  Any reader who may know just where this drawing was published should get in touch with me. Readers in possession of other George Booth drawings are invited to tell their stories and send scans or photos. Or we could have a conference call.

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Ronald Searle: A Beefeater Is Served

In a 1996 Ronald Searle ink and watercolor drawing, we see a beefeater in a restaurant being served dinner by a bull. The meal is not very filling and not very beefy and he is not very happy. A pencil notation on the front of the artwork indicate that it is one of two drawings made for a Town and Country article on London restaurants. It was sold last month at Heritage Auctions in the  Illustration Art sale.

Searle's art is always better viewed full size:

On the back of the original is an unfinished ink drawing over pencil that was never erased. It depicts a well-to-do man in period attire being attacked by hungry books with cartoon eyeballs and sharp teeth. It's intriguing but what is it?

The bidding was strong some sixteen hours before the sale, with a solid $3,100 bid ($3,875 with the premium).

Ronald Searle
Heritage Auctions listing accessed sixteen hours before the sale

https://fineart.ha.com/itm/pulp-pulp-like-digests-and-paperback-art/ronald-william-fordham-searle-british-1920-2011-beefeater-1996-watercolor-and-ink-on-paper-14-3-4-x-14-1-4-inches/a/8224-71268.s?ic4=GalleryView-ShortDescription-071515

Ronald Searle
Heritage Auctions item description

But the price was to go still higher in the illustration art sale during the live bidding:

December 28, 2025 Update:  These two drawings share some details of costume but are otherwise almost certainly unrelated save for the presence of books and Searle's exaggerated style. It strains credulity to suggest that a rough variant for a 1989 book illustration would be on the back of a 1996 finished drawing.

Numerous critical marginal notes in a contemporary hand
Ronald Searle
Slightly Foxed—but Still Desirable: Ronald Searle's Wicked World of Book Collecting (Souvenir Press, 1989)

https://simanaitissays.com/2013/01/31/ronald-searle/

Note:  Was this beefeater illustration actually published? Was the drawing of the dandy attacked by books ever finished? If you have access to print images of either of these, please get in touch.

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Arthur Rackham: Peter Pan Passed Under the Bridge

The Peter Pan of J. M. Barrie's Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens (1906) is not the older boy of the familiar stage play but a seven-day old infant. The book is sumptuously illustrated by Arthur Rackham. An original watercolor from the book held by Peter Harrington of London shows young Peter Pan navigating toward the Gardens in his sailing nest ship built especially for him by the thrushes.

Arthur Rackham
Peter Harrington listing accessed April 9, 2021

https://www.peterharrington.co.uk/original-watercolour-from-peter-pan-in-kensington-gardens-138694.html

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John and Therese Wright's Copy of Desclozeaux

The Institut français du Royaume-Uni in South Kensington held an exhibition of work by French cartoonist Jean-Pierre Desclozeaux in January and February of 1982. It was the artist's first showing in England. The exhibit featured a sampling of the artist's vibrant watercolors. The catalogue has an appreciative introduction by Ronald Searle. John and Therese Wright's copy has some foxing on the cover, but it boasts an inscription by the artist in multicolored pencil.

The Institut français du Royaume-Uni, London
Desclozeaux, 1982

Slightly foxed—but still desirable

Spine view

Inscription by Jean-Pierre Desclozeaux

"Apropos Desclozeaux" by Ronald Searle

Desclozeaux
eBay Listing Ended November 18, 2019

https://www.ebay.com/itm/034-DESCLOZEAUX-034-SIGNED-1982-EXHIBITION-CATALOGUE-INSTITUT-FRANCAIS-LONDON-/392530998969?ul_noapp=true&autorefresh=true&nma=true&si=YQGb25QThn5Fxe78BW8tTy6VzZY%253D&orig_cvip=true&nordt=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

Desclozeaux
eBay Item Description

eBay Bid History
One stealthy bid at the auction close.

Note:  I'm almost certain that perfectly-centered Searle signature is a printed one that appears in every copy of the catalogue. Anyone with a copy who can confirm or refute this should get in touch.

This is the first appearance of Jean-Pierre Desclozeaux on Attempted Bloggery. Readers with examples of his original art are encouraged to share them here by submitting scans or photos.

Quick Links to the Attempted Bloggery Archives:

Catalogues

Ronald Searle

Signed Books

Spring

Attempted Bloggery's Franco-American Index

03203

Edward Sorel: The English Language Tower of Babel

Mistress Quickly:  What, John Rugby! I pray thee, go to the casement and see if you can see my master, Master Doctor Caius, coming. If he do, i’ faith, and find anybody in the house, here will be an old abusing of God’s patience and the King’s English.

The Merry Wives of Windsor

Act I, scene iv

William Shakespeare

Illustrator Edward Sorel, who last week turned 90, has been producing outstanding work for some six decades. To demonstrate this, Tom Bloom has scanned a page from the March 2, 1962 issue of Life with a forgotten full-page illustration by the then thirty-two-year-old Sorel, already a creative force to be reckoned with. 



In "The English Language," author Lincoln Barnett points out the remarkable fact that English has become the most spoken language in the world. Sorel has illustrated the point with an English-speaking Tower of Babel. Shakespeare himself presides at the top of the tower, reciting his own words from The Merry Wives of Windsor. On the left, Nikita Krushchev just slightly mangles the language with his "Very OK" while Prime Minister Nehru and the Dalai Lama converse with each other not in their native languages but in English.

Edward Sorel
Life, March 2, 1962, page 72

Scan by Tom Bloom

Other illustrations from the article are available on Google Books:

https://books.google.com/books?id=kE0EAAAAMBAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

https://books.google.com/books?id=kE0EAAAAMBAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

https://books.google.com/books?id=kE0EAAAAMBAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

Note:  Merci à Tom Bloom for submitting the color scan of the Tower of Babel. This is Tom's sixth contribution to Attempted Bloggery.


Quick Links to the Attempted Bloggery Archives:

Edward Sorel

Life

Shakespeare

Tom Bloom

Attempted Bloggery's Unspeakable Index

02882

Peter Arno at the Leicester Galleries

The online Encyclopædia Britannica entry on Peter Arno shows a photograph of the America cartoonist posing with his works at the Leicester Galleries exhibition in 1932. Wouldn't it be great to get a closer look at the cartoons? Of course it would. Let's number the top row one through five from left to right, and the bottom row six through ten, and then see what we can do.

Peter Arno at the Leicester Galleries, London, 1932

http://www.britannica.com/biography/Peter-Arno

1. "Damn this black carpet! I never can find my socks."
The New Yorker, March 22, 1930

2. "I just stepped out a minute to get the milk, dear."

The New Yorker, December 21, 1929

3. "Haf you had any previous experience in pictures?"
Peter Arno's Circus (1931)

4. ["?"]

5. ["?"]

6. "Sh! I've been coquetting with La Flamme since a quarter past the hour!"
The New Yorker, October 12, 1929

7. ["?"]

8. "Good God, young man! For a second I thought you were Colonel Brisley—of Nantucket!"
Peter Arno's Circus (1931)

Image added January 16, 2017

9. "Don't fret, sir, Madam will be back in a minute."
The New Yorker, April 6, 1929 

10. "Why Major Pauncefoote! What a surprise!"
The New Yorker, April 9, 1932

Note:  Three of these ten cartoons are unknown to me. I would appreciate hearing from anyone who can help identify any of them. I would also like to hear from anyone with a catalogue from the original 1932 London exhibition; they seem to be quite rare. It would also be great to learn of the current whereabouts of any of this artwork. Did most remain in England? Did Arno bring the unsold ones back home? Someone somewhere must know something.

This blog's collected Peter Arno posts are only a link away.

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