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Article: A LIFE IN FULL: PRAISE OF RONALD SEARLE Next month the Chris Beetles Gallery will hold the first major retrospective exhibition in this country of the foremost graphic artist of the modern age, now 83 and still prolific. His instantly recognisable work has had an international reputation for half a century. We offer here our own retrospective with extracts from his biography (just reprinted) by RUSSELL DAVIES
- Article from:
- The Independent on Sunday (London, England)
- Article date:
- September 21, 2003
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright 2003 The Independent on Sunday. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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Ronald Searle has often been called the foremost graphic artist of
the modern age. His friend David Arkell has settled for the
formulation "arguably the finest graphic draughtsman of the 20th
century". I don't really want to get into those arguments, or the
game of definitions they entail. Searle is a superb comic draughtsman
of international reputation. I do not personally know of any
contemporary who approaches him in versatility, fecundity or the
instant identifiability of his line.
To have a "unique" style should be no great claim in the graphics
world; every artist ought to have such, and some (like, say, Ed Koren
of The New Yorker, whose work Searle admires) have uniqueness in a ...