The Owl and the Pussycat: Ronald Searle Original New Yorker Cover Art

The Owl and the Pussycat, beloved characters from Edward Lear's nonsense verse, make an appearance in Ronald Searle's New Yorker cover of July 27, 1992. In Lear's telling, they "went to sea in a beautiful pea-green boat," but here they take that boat out onto Central Park Lake. Yesterday, the original Searle art was sold by Stephenson's Auctions of Bucks County, Pennsylvania.

The presale estimate was $300-$500 with the bidding starting at $150, absurdly low numbers all around. Seventeen potential bidders watched the item.

Ronald Searle
Stephenson's Auction listing 13 hours before the sale

https://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/195157908_ronald-william-fordham-searle-illustration-art

Sold! (To an internet bidder.)

Note:  For further reading, see the blog's 2020 post on Arnie Levin and Ronald Searle: The Owl and the Pussycat and The New Yorker. It's an old favorite of mine.

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An Edward Lear First Day Cover Signed by Ronald Searle

The autograph market is rife with postal covers bearing patently unrelated signatures. The thinking is that if one takes something collectible such as, say, a first day cover, and has some celebrity sign it, a unique rarity has been created. If the signature bears no relation to the cover, though, there's not much point to it. On the other hand, if an astronaut should perhaps sign a cover with a space stamp, the signature and the stamp might have a perceived synergy that could very well make it a sought-after item.

The same might be said for an item sold yesterday by Chaucer Covers and Auctions, a first day cover with four Edward Lear (1812-1888) stamps issued in the UK on the centenary of his death and signed by Ronald Searle (1920-2011). Lear, of course, is known for his nonsense verse and fanciful illustrations, while Searle, who followed him a century later, was a master of humorous illustration. Clearly the combination works and the selling price, 28 GBP ($39.50 US), while not extravagant, is at least a proof of concept.

Edward Lear/Ronald Searle
Invaluable auction accessed May 2, 2021

https://www.invaluable.com/catalog/jj2r9r0owm?rfa=true&size=50&page=1&categories=&searchWithAll=Searle

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Arnie Levin and Ronald Searle: The Owl and the Pussycat and The New Yorker

Edward Lear
The Owl and the Pussy-Cat

https://www.mediastorehouse.com/granger-art-on-demand/cats/owl-pussycat-drawing-edward-lear-book-nonsense-songs-6249501.html?prodid=7287

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43188/the-owl-and-the-pussy-cat

More than a century after the original publication of Edward Lear's The Owl and the Pussy-Cat (1871), the famous nonsense poem improbably served as the inspiration for two outstanding New Yorker covers published exactly five years apart. Not coincidentally, these two covers neatly bracket the five-year editorial reign of Robert Gottlieb. The moonlit 1987 cover is by Arnie Levin; the 1992 cover set on Central Park Lake is by Ronald Searle.

Arnie Levin
The New Yorker, July 27, 1987

https://archives.newyorker.com/newyorker/1987-07-27/flipbook/CV1/

Ronald Searle
The New Yorker, July 27, 1992

https://archives.newyorker.com/newyorker/1992-07-27/flipbook/CV1/

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Incidentally, a more tempestuous treatment of the subject by Searle is today in the collection of Robert L. Forbes. It is apparently undated.

Ronald Searle
The Owl and the Pussycat

Ronald Searle
Christie's South Kensington
July 29, 2008

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43188/the-owl-and-the-pussy-cat

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