Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Antique Image of the Day: Hand Up the Girl, 1944

Cartoon by Robert Searle
The Cartoon Museum, England



This cartoon by Ronald Searle dates to 1944 and shows both his visual and comic sensibilities.  Captioned, “Hand up the girl who burnt down the east wing last night,”  this image is one of the thousands of “St Trinian’s” cartoon which Searle began in 1941.  The inmates of this fictional girls’ school (based on Cambridge’s Perse School for Girls) were misfits and rogues depicted in rather gruesome situations—the antithesis of the posh girls’ school for which England was famous.  The cartoons were incredibly popular and inspired a series of films.

Sadly, this genius is no longer with us.  Ronald Searle recently passed away on December 30, 2011.  

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