Next Wednesday, March 3, sees the 90th birthday of the hugely influential British cartoonist Ronald Searle. To celebrate, two exhibitions of his work will open on that day.

The creator of St Trinian’s (above, from Lilliput magazine) and illustrator of the Molesworth books, who has lived and worked in France since the 1960s, will be celebrated in shows at the Cartoon Museum and the Chris Beetles Gallery in London.

Ronald Searle – Graphic Master, an exhibition of cartoons, illustrations and reportage from across the world is at the Cartoon Museum until July 4. This exhibition shows 140 works from across his 75-year career, from his early cartoons for the Cambridge Daily News in the 1930s to political cartoons for Le Monde in the 2000s.

Some of his drawings recording life and death in Japanese prisoner of war camps, works which he famously hid from his captors, are included in the exhibition. Searle later produced reportage cartoons for American magazines such as Life. In 1961 he drew the trial of Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem, above.

For more details on the show, visit the Cartoon Museum website.

The retrospective exhibition at Chris Beetles Gallery, called Happy Birthday Ronald Searle, runs until April 3. It features more than 200 cartoons and illustrations, all for sale, again covering all aspects of Searle’s career, including work from Punch and the News Chronicle, reportage, and adverts.

There are also by loans from private collections, which include work for Life drawn during the Nixon/Kennedy presidential campaign of 1960. The exhibition can be viewed at the Chris Beetles website.

To whet your appetite, The Times ran a very long and informative interview with Searle at the weekend: read it here. The Searle tribute site Perpetua is also well worth a look.

Cartoons by the likes of Ed McLachlan, above, Matt, Nick Newman, Mac, and Tony Husband, can be acquired at a bargain price in the Chris Beetles Gallery’s Sale 2010 which opens in London this weekend.

For more details on the Sale, which also includes illustration work and watercolours, visit the Chris Beetles Gallery website.

An exhibition entitled Only Joking! is at the Cartoon Museum, London, from January 27 until March 1. The show is billed as a collection of joke cartoons old and new designed to raise spirits in the deep winter. Meanwhile, you have until January 24 to catch 30 Years of Viz at the museum. For more, visit the website.

The 14th Annual Winter exhibition is under way at the Illustration Cupboard Gallery in London. It runs until January 31 and admission is free. For more details, visit the website.

Left: Yorkshire Gothic by Michael Salter of Aardman Animation.

Spotted by Tim Harries.

It’s always an uphill struggle for cartoonists to get work exhibited, because cartoons are generally not regarded by those whose job it is to decide such things as “Art” with a capital A.

So PCOer Chris Madden was more than a little amused, and bemused, to spot the above cartoon at the current Frieze Art Fair, which is largely seen as a critical barometer for all that is relevant, edgy, and, if you will, zeitgeisty, in the world of Contemporary Art (with two capital letters).

Of course it’s not actually a cartoon, it’s a silkscreen print by American artist Richard Prince of an existing cartoon (by someone else, uncredited) with additions in acrylic.

That’s why it cost, and has been sold for, £150,000.

Mr Prince made his name “rephotographing” existing works. His image, “Untitled (Cowboy)” a photo of a cigarette advert, was the first photo to raise more than $1 million at auction, despite the obvious copyright violation. So we’re sure he wouldn’t mind the PCO rephotographing “his” work to get a closer look.

Ah, you see, the caption is nothing to do with the image. It’s incomprehensible so it really is ART. With three capital letters.

So, the question for you, readers, is this: Where does rip-off end and homage begin? Answers in comments below please.

Noel Ford’s first Punch magazine cartoon

PCO cartoonist Noel Ford has an exhibition of his work at the Museum and Art Gallery in Nuneaton, Warwickshire, until November 8.

The gallery is celebrating the work of the locally born cartoonist to mark the Campaign for Drawing’s Big Draw month. The show features images spanning Noel’s career, including work from the museum’s own collection alongside recent digital illustrations.

Noel Ford’s cartoons have featured in many national publications, notably Punch magazine, as well as the local Nuneaton Tribune newspaper. The exhibition will feature his early entry to Nuneaton Festival of Arts as well as his later original colour cover artwork for Punch.

The cartoonist will be giving a lunchtime talk on Friday 23rd October, 12.30 – 1.30pm. The talk is free, but booking is essential. Contact the museum on 024-7635 0720

Nuneaton Museum and Art Gallery is open Tue – Sat 10.30am – 4.30pm and Sun 2pm – 4.30pm

“Many readers would not admit it but the first thing they do with a magazine like The Oldie is to flick through it to look at the cartoons. If that is true, as I think it is, then the cartoons assume enormous importance.”

Richard Ingrams, editor of The Oldie, and former editor of Private Eye, in an intro to The Oldie Book of Cartoons 1992-2009

Read the full piece here

The Oldie is hosting an exhibition at London’s Cartoon Museum from this Thursday, October 1, until December 24, 2009. A selection of cartoons from the new book will be on display.

You can also buy more than 100 original cartoons just around the corner at Abbott and Holder Ltd on Museum Street. See them online here

PCOer John Jensen is to give an illustrated talk on the early work of cartoonist Rowland Emett, entitled The Eccentric Whimsicality of Mr. Emett, Inventor at the Cartoon Museum in London.

The talk is a tie-in with the exhibition Engines of Enchantment: The Machines and Cartoons of Rowland Emett which is at the museum until November 1.

John Jensen’s talk takes place on on September 16, from 6.30pm – 7.30pm. Entrance is £5, Concessions £4 and Friends of the Museum £3.

The Cartoon Museum, at 35 Little Russell Street, Bloomsbury, is open Tuesday-Saturday 10.30am to 5.30pm and Sundays 12pm to 5.30pm.

With the 2009 Ashes series fast approaching, the Chris Beetles Gallery in London is set to stage A Celebration of Cricket: From Ashes to Zooter

The exhibition runs from July 15 until August 8 and features cartoons, illustrations and watercolours from 200 years of cricket.

More than half the show will be devoted to cartoons. From Sir Len Hutton to Shane Warne, few cricketers of note have escaped the hawk-eye of the cartoonist. The show will feature Glen Baxter, above, Mark Boxer, Tony Husband, Jak, John Jensen, Larry, Nick Newman and many more. It will be opened by Sir Ian Botham, with 10 per cent of all opening night sales going to the charity Leukaemia Research

The Chris Beetles Gallery, at 8 and 10 Ryder Street, St James’s, London (nearest Tube Green Park or Piccadilly Circus) is open Monday to Saturday, 10am – 5.30pm. The gallery’s website can be found at www.chrisbeetles.com

Prudence and Stability, by Dave Brown, after Dignity and Impudence by Edwin Landseer (1839)

The Independent today features a new article by cartoonist Dave Brown, about his exhibition Rogues’ Gallery: More Misused Masterpieces which is currently at the Political Cartoon Gallery in London.