Ronald Searle (Cambridge 1920-2011 Draguignan)

In 1948 Searle travelled with fellow illustrator Paul Hogarth and art historian Millicent Rose to Poland via Germany and Czechoslovakia to survey the post-war devastation. Hogarth later said 'Ronald again displayed incredible versatility in tackling a wide variety of subject matter. We stayed in Prague en route for several days and drew the picturesque lanes of the Mala Strana below Hradcany Castle.
Two years before this work was executed Searle had recently returned to England and settled in London following his horrific three year internment in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp. Searle was by this point beginning to become established as an illustrator, having started to gain reputation for his iconic depictions of the Saint Trinian's schoolgirls, he had his first illustration published in Punch in 1946 and had recently married Kaye Webb, the publisher, in 1947.