An Odyssey In Illustration

A retrospective of work by Brian sanders sheds light on the golden era of commercial art - the 1960s. we chat to him about his fascinating career.

- Sally Hales

The surreal otherworldliness and sense of trepidation in Moon Pit 01 perfectly captures one of film’s greatest moments. Created by British illustrator Brian Sanders, the 120x120cm mixed media work records the descent to the monolith in Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 masterpiece 2001: A Space Odyssey. The artist was chosen by the director – who worked on a closed set on which photography was not allowed – to record the film shoot. More than 50 years later, this stunning work is making a rare public appearance at the Lever Gallery in London, until 29 July, as part of a retrospective of Sanders’ work during a defining decade for illustration.

To find his man, Kubrick turned to one of the biggest art agencies of the time, Artist Partners, where Sanders had made a name for himself as a commercial artist during the heyday of illustration using the ‘bubble and streak’ technique, which would come to define the aesthetic of the Swinging Sixties. But the director wasn’t drawn by this work, but Sanders’ more experimental, noncommercial collages.

“I always experimented alongside things I’d been working on,” says Sanders. “I’d been doing heavy-duty collages, made out of tin cans and things like that. [I was picked] on the strength of the tin-can collages and the work I’d started to do for The Sunday Times and people like that. He [Kubrick] said, ‘Would you like to come and draw on set?’ And that was that.”