Essex artists’ hell-raising adventures in Wivenohe with Francis Bacon feature in new publication The Visitors’ Book

Denis Wirth-Miller and Richard Chopping (Image: Archant)

With week-long parties of hedonistic excess, Denis Wirth-Miller and Richard “Dickie” Chopping carved out a bohemian enclave in sleepy Wivenhoe.

Among their guests were famous artists including Francis Bacon, Robert Colquhoun and Robert MacBryde, who would enjoy wild nights of debauchery away from their regular Fitzrovia haunts.

Esteemed artists in their own right – Wirth-Miller for his landscape paintings and Chopping as an illustrator for Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels – they both fell away from the limelight towards the end of their lives. Now, however, the full extent of their story and the roles they played in Britain’s turbulent post-war art scene is being revealed in never-before-seen detail.

Jon Lys Turner, a close personal friend of the couple, was bequeathed their extensive personal archive; a collection of letters, notes and unseen material, which he has used to write The Visitors’ Book.

Trompe l'oeil by Richard Chopping (Image: Archant)

Described by the Tate gallery as “one of the most important finds in decades”, the archive offers a unique insight into the couple’s lives together and the intriguing social scene around them.

Turner, himself a successful creative designer, was at first unsure what to do with his inheritance.

But after arousing the interest of arts experts, who were captivated by its contents, he started the painstaking four-year process of cataloguing the vast array of material.

The collection covers decades of their life together, from when they first met at a Noel Coward show in 1937, through to Bacon’s death in 1992.

Visrtors' Book (Image: Archant)

Some of their earliest days together came when Wirth-Miller was studying at the East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing in Hadleigh, alongside Lucian Freud.

Turner said the art school was popular for young men from London during the war.

“It was almost like Fitzrovia in the country,” he said.

“They could get way from London and come and have a lovely time getting roaring drunk at this huge house.”

Some of the archive materials (Image: Archant)

The couple’s Wivenhoe home, which they renovated from an old storehouse in 1945, is where much of the book revolves.

“It was the bedrock to everything that went on,” explained Turner.

Here they would play host to their artistic contemporaries, a group of mostly gay young men, who pushed social boundaries for their art.

Turner described their nights in Wivenhoe as “unpredictable, lively and potentially dangerous”.

“There are some pretty hair-raising stories in this book,” he added.

“They made the next generation look like amateurs when it came to drinking, debauchery and promiscuity.”

While Turner said many of the town’s pubs would ban the men for their drunken behaviour, he claims the letters show how they were accepted and welcomed in the community, despite their unconventional lifestyles.

Michael Parkin, one of the artists who visited the couple in Wivenhoe, said it retained a similar atmosphere to the community portrayed in Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas.

Turner added: “They lived against the law as a same-sex couple but they were accepted, loved and embraced by the people.”

The book also shows how destructive some of their relationships could be, particularly the friendship between Wirth-Miller and Bacon.

Bacon, who defined friendship as “two people pulling each other to pieces”, would argue fiercely with Wirth-Miller, and was a harsh critic of his work.

Turner describes how Bacon turned up “blind drunk” to one of his friend’s exhibitions at the Wivenhoe Art Club and started slating the paintings on display.

“The opening was closed down, people were ushered out and Denis went to pieces,” he added.

“He totally destroyed the whole show and did not paint for years.

“Bacon had knocked him down, not just publicly, but in Wivenhoe, where he felt most at home.”

Having humiliated his friend, further details emerged of Bacon’s attempts to help Wirth-Miller, painting together on the same canvas.

“I found that to be a real revelation,” Turner said.

Turner first met the couple at the Royal College of Art in 1981, where he was studying for his masters degree.

While he has been shocked by some of their behaviour he said he would always remember them kindly.

“For me, they completely changed my life,” he added.

“I would not have attended the Royal College unless I had won a scholarship and so, the fact they believed in me and helped me along was amazing.

“I loved them dearly, as though they were uncles or part of my family.

“But I also found from doing this, some of the reviews of their work have been rather disparaging, calling them lesser artists.

“I don’t believe that their work was not important.

“They were the glue that held this early co-operative of artists together.

“I hope that by doing this I can bring their work to a wider audience.”

The Visitors’ Book, was published by Constable last month.

Some of the book’s intriguing details

Francis Bacon would only have his hair cut in Colchester. Letters from the artist while in France contain reference to his need to return to see the couple so that he could have his hair cut.

Denis Wirth-Miller was a friend of Prince Yusupov, the Russian who took part in the assassination of Rasputin. When Chopping met Wirth Miller for the second time, he was in Cafe Royale in London with the Russian.

The painting Man in the Black Cravat, now proven to have been almost certainly painted by Lucian Freud, is thought to have a portrait of John Jameson, of the Irish whisky family. Jameson was a contemporary of Freud and Wirth-Miller at the East Anglian School of Painting in Hadleigh, where he was rumoured to have pursued an interest in witchcraft.