Showing posts with label They're All Against Me. Show all posts
Showing posts with label They're All Against Me. Show all posts

Wednesday, August 31, 2022

Ronald Searle: Idyll

Ronald Searle's Idyll (1973) is a sweet yet somewhat mystifying evocation of spring. His cats were generally popular and, to his frustration, sold lithographs far better than did his non-feline satirical work. Here one of his delightful cats prances about outdoors piping music. Add to that a few dozen unappreciative birds, many of them nesting, and a single reticent pig, and you have—just what, exactly? You have an idyll without an audience.

Idyll
Ronald Searle
Lithograph in colors
No. 47/99, 1973

Idyll
Ronald Searle
Lithograph in colors
No. 47/99, 1973

Ronald Searle's signature


Ronald Searle
Auktionshaus Mehlis GmbH listing accessed August 9, 2022
August 27, 2022, lot 4075


Sold! The sale price, with an English translation:



Idyll was included in More Cats (1975), shown here (but not in the book) alongside They're All Against Me, another lithograph:







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Saturday, January 4, 2020

Ronald Searle: They're All Against Me

In 1975 Ronald Searle adapted his New Yorker cover of February 17, 1973 into a lithograph entitled They're All Against Me. Searle had no choice but to execute the magazine cover as a vertical composition, but the lithograph allowed him to rethink the placement of the fish-loving cat among the many desserts. The result is a horizontal composition that conveys the same idea as the bold cover in a very different way. Even the expressions on the faces of the cats are markedly different, a sly smile versus a disappointed frown. It works both ways. For his collection More Cats (1975), which has its pages in what we now call the landscape orientation, Searle chose to reproduce the lithograph; in fact, it may have been created in part for this purpose.
Ronald Searle
The New Yorker, February 17, 1973


Ronald Searle
They're All Against Me
Hors commerce
aside from the edition of 99, 1975





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