Sunday 6 June 2010

1959 Thunderball Pre-Production Artwork

1959 Thunderball pre-production sketches by Stephen Grimes, presented on canvas by Sylvan Whittingham Mason, daughter of Screenwriter Jack Whittingham. She kindly shared the history of these artworks with me:
They were commissioned by Xanadau Productions (The production company formed by McClory & Bryce) in 1959. The sketches were exhibited at the Venice Film Festival in the pre production stage of what eventually became Thunderball to raise capital for this very first Bond movie project.
Unfortunately the original sketches were lost. But in 2005 Sylvan discovered photos of the sketches while reviewing papers inherited from her father from the Thunderball court case in the preparation of the Robert Sellers Book about the court case, "The Battle For Bond".

She is now sharing these sketche
s as art-prints on canvas on her website