Robert Stewart Sheriffs , 1907 -

Best known as film caricaturist for Punch - specialising in effective abstracted drawings of celebrity in ink, where the abstraction always retains a likeness. Here Sheriffs takes delight in the representation of his Punch colleague Ronald Searle whose St Trinians characters were deployed on stage and film during this period. This comes from Punch October 1954. The contrasted brushwork on Searle's hair brows and beard is characteristic Sheriffs - three different ways of drawing in the one image (reproduced originally at 9 x 12 cms). I have scanned it much larger to emphasise qualities of line and tone in Sheriffs' work. His early work as shown in Salute if You Must (c1940) , demonstrates his drawing skills and visual solutions. He has an uncanny ability at constructing the persuasive mechanical.