Ronald Searle was born in Cambridge, England, the son of a Post Office telephone-line repairman. He began drawing at the age of five and left school at fifteen. Searle studied for two years at Cambridge College of Arts and Technology. In April 1939, he left art school to enlist in the Royal Engineers. By January 1942, he was serving in Singapore with the 287th Field Company. Captured by the Japanese after the fall of Singapore, he was imprisoned with his cousin Tom Fordham Searle. He endured captivity in Changi Prison and the Kwai jungle, working on the Siam–Burma Death Railway. Searle suffered beriberi, malaria, severe beatings, and extreme weight loss during imprisonment. He was liberated in late 1945 after Japan’s defeat. After the war, he worked as a courtroom artist at the Nuremberg trials and Adolf Eichmann’s trial in 1961. In 1947, he married journalist Kaye Webb; they had twins, Kate and Johnny. Searle moved to Paris in 1961, later divorcing Webb in 1967. He then married Monica Koenig, a painter, theatre, and jewellery designer. From 1975, the couple lived and worked in Haute Provence, France. Monica died in July 2011; Searle passed away on 30 December 2011, aged 91.