The Visitors' Book. In Francis Bacon's Shadow: The Lives of Richard Chopping and Denis Wirth-Miller

By Jon Lys Turner, Constable, 2016, ISBN 978-1-47212-166-0, 392pp (Essex County Libraries 709.22)

Added by Pat Marsden

An illustrated  biography about artists Richard Chopping and Denis Wirth-Miller by their friend Jon Lys Turner, who inherited their extensive personal archive.

They are described as part of a ‘group of mostly gay young men who pushed boundaries in their art and relationships against a backdrop of wild nights in Fitzrovia and Soho’. They both found fame after the war – one as a designer of Ian Fleming’s James Bond covers, and the other as a ground-breaking landscape artist. They also developed an enduring but turbulent relationship with fellow artist Francis Bacon.

in October 1944 they bought their first house in Wivenhoe, The Storehouse, on the quay overlooking the River Colne, where they lived until their final days.

This page was added on 12/12/2016.

Comments about this page

  • A book that really captures the beauty and horror of the extraordinary lives of Richard Chopping and Denis Wirth-Miller in Wivenhoe, London and beyond. The book is sad, hilarious and unbelievably informative – exactly like the men themselves.

    By Simon (06/04/2018)

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