Andrew Lycett

Lives of gay abandon

John Lys Turner’s dual portrait of Richard Chopping and Denis Wirth-Miller — who knew everyone on the art scene from the 1930s to the 1980s — zips along gaily

issue 11 June 2016

Somewhere I have a couple of neat letters from the artist Richard Chopping, politely declining my requests to interview him about Ian Fleming. ‘Dicky’ is best known for the trompe l’oeil dust jackets he painted for nine of Fleming’s James Bond novels. Because of this patronage, an accomplished second-division artist gained wider prominence, becoming at one stage, according to the New Yorker, the world’s highest paid book designer.

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