Something in the Cellar: Ronald Searle's Wonderful World of Wine.**

UK,Qrto HB+dw/dj,1st edn. FINE/FINE. No owner inscrptn,but price-clipped dw/dj.Bright,crisp,clean, glossy laminated,colour pictorial illustrated dw/dj by Ronald Searle; with negligible shelf-wear and creasing to top edges and corners.Top edge minisculely,lightly dust-soiled,fore-edges bright and clean; contents bright,tight and near pristine.Publisher's bright,clean, unblemished,original plain black cloth boards with bright,crisp,blocked silver gilt letters to spine/backstrip and immaculate plain red endpapers.UK, Qrto HB+dw/dj,1st edn,80pp [unpaginated] includes verso coloured illustrated,colour illustrated frntis,title page and a mixture of full-colour,full-page illustrations and full-page b/w illustrations - majority though,are in colour.
Have you ever witnessed the Ancient,Noble (and Secret) Ceremony of Slashing the Trockenbeerenauslese? Or the Inauguration of the First Authentic (and Indisputable) Denominazione di Origine Controllata e Garantita? Have you attended the Vinolympics,tasted Ptolemy Nouveau or watched the Uncorking of the Kangarouge? Unless you can answer 'yes' to at least one of these questions,your initiation into the mysteries of wine and its production has scarcely begun.
Let Ronald Searle,in his own inimitable way,introduce you to the time honoured Wine Ceremonies of the World: from the USA (Blessing the Grapes - California Style) to the Far East (the Japanese Wine Ceremony); from Scotland (the Squeezing of the Bonnie Malted Grape) to South Africa (Colourful Ceremony of Offering Limited Recognition to the Black Grape) - and,in passing,let him show you how many ways there are to open a bottle of wine.A brilliant successor to 'The Illustrated Winespeak',its outrageously perceptive humour makes it a must for vintners and wine imbibers throughout the world. Some of these drawings have appeared first in The Subtle Alchemist (1973),Pariscope magazine (1973), Paris! Paris!(NY,1977) and R.S's aforementioned Illustrated Winespeak (1983).
The rest of the drawings are new and appear for the first time in this collection.
Ronald William Fordham Searle (b. March 3rd,1920 - d. Dec 30th ,2011.) He was an English artist and satirical cartoonist,comics artist,sculptor,medal designer and illustrator.He is best remembered as the creator of St Trinian's School and for his collaboration with Geoffrey Willans on the 'Molesworth' series. Works as Ronald Searle.Born in Cambridge.Studied at Cambridge School of Art (1936-39).Served in the Army during WW2 and was interned in Japanese PoW camps in Siam and Malaysia for three and a half years.On his release,he settled in London and began working as a humorous illustrator and carciaturist for books and magazines, including 'Punch' and 'Lilliput'.In 1959,at the invitation of the United Nations' High Commissioner for Refugees,he visited camps in Austria, Italy and Greece,and published a book illustrating his impressions. The following year he settled in France,where he lived until his death. Searle has illustrated over 60 books.'Hurrah for St. Trinian's!' (1948) was among the first of many giving a mock-horrific view of private schools and their denizens; in these and many of his other books,the predominant mood of effervescent humour is offset by sinister or macabre overtones.
He early developed a fanciful and strikingly individual graphic manner,subjecting the human form to grotesque distortions (bristling brows, hunched shoulders,matchstick legs and stiletto feet) and by the mid 1950s had become virtually a household name in Britain.He succeeds both at character-invention (favouring a number of well-defined types) and at caricature.He is also a painter in watercolour and gouache,etcher and lithographer and has worked on several films including Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines (1965).
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