Ronald Searle

Widely acknowledged as an influential English artist and cartoonist, Ronald Searle was born in Cambridge in 1920. He became a regular contributor to the Cambridge Daily News aged 15 and subsequently put himself through art school. He enlisted in the Royal Engineers and was captured by the Japanese in 1942 spending the remainder of the war in prison camps, where he drew extraordinary eye witness accounts of the horrors there. Once back in the UK he built up a remarkable body of work for Punch, the New Yorker, Holiday, News Chronicle as well as illustrating the Molesworth books (in collaboration with Geoffrey Willans) and St Trinians.

In 1961 he went to live in Paris and worked on reportage for Life and Holiday and recorded post-war Europe. He has worked non-stop since, with his artwork appearing in Le Monde, the International Herald Tribune and The Spectator. He has been awarded the Legion d'Honneur by the French as well as a CBE. Now in his 91st year, he lives with his wife Monica in the south of France.