JAMES BOND 007 MAGAZINE | Richard Chopping (1917-2008)

More than meets the eye - RICHARD CHOPPING 1917-2008

Artist and writer Richard Chopping died on 17 April 2008 at the age of 91. He is survived by his civil partner, Denis Wirth-Miller with whom he lived for 70 years. Most famous for the dust jacket illustrations for nine of Ian Fleming's James Bond novels beginning in 1957, he went on to become a successful (if controversial) author himself in the mid sixties, with two novels The Fly (1965) and The Ring (1967).

His trompe l'oeil paintings defined the 007 style long before the film series was launched in 1962 and his work was the centrepiece at the launch of the Ian Fleming Centenary celebrations earlier this year, when three of his covers appeared on Royal Mail's James Bond stamps. His work is also featured in the Bond Bound: Ian Fleming and the art of cover design exhibition currently running at The Fleming Collection in London.

Richard Chopping at work on THE SPY WHO LOVED ME in 1962

THE SPY WHO LOVED ME dust jacket by Richard Chopping

ABOVE & BELOW: Richard Chopping at work in 1962 on the dust jacket for THE SPY WHO LOVED ME. The same year 007 would hit the cinema screens, not quite fine art but even more successful than the novels.

BOTTOM RIGHT: The dust jacket artwork for Richard Chopping's The Fly and The Ring both of which were painted by the author.

Introduced to Ian Fleming in 1957 by fellow artist Francis Bacon, Richard Chopping entered into an uneasy collaboration with the James Bond author. Creating the cover for FROM RUSSIA, WITH LOVE from the author's own design, Chopping went on to conceive the wonderfully detailed trompe l'oeil paintings for all the remaining Ian Fleming novels in the series with the exception of DR. NO, which was executed by Patricia Marriott.

Throughout his later life Chopping became increasingly dissatisfied with the way he believed Fleming had acted with regard to remuneration and copyright of the work, and in 2000 declared that he regretted ever meeting him.