About
Clive Arrowsmith is a celebrated international photographer who is based in London.
After leaving art school in North Wales, where he had studied painting and design, he attended Kingston College of Art (where he gained a first-class Degree) on graduation he painted for two years. He then began taking photographs whilst working as a graphic designer for Rediffusion TV (the makers of the legendary music show Ready Steady Go!).
On leaving television to work as a photographer, he soon gained commissions from leading fashion magazines (following the delivery of a dynamic set of photos of the Paris Collections) for, most notably, British & French Vogue, Nova Magazine, Harpers, The Sunday Times Magazine, Vanity Fair, Esquire U.S.A, and the F.T. "How to Spend It" luxury magazine and numerous publications worldwide.
Clive continues to work in this genre in both editorial and advertising photography but is equally known for his music and celebrity images of Sir Paul McCartney, Wings, Mick Jagger, Jeff Beck, George Harrison, Daniel Barenboim, Anna Netrebko, Art Garfunkel, Def Leppard, Prince Charles, Michael Caine and Damien Hirst to name just a few of the celebrated people he has photographed.
Clive Arrowsmith is the only photographer to have photographed the Pirelli Calendar two years in succession, taking on the themes of Heroines and Chinese Astrology with typical enthusiasm. The Heroines calendar was also the subject of a TV documentary for Granada TV which was fronted by broadcasting legend Michael Aspel and documented the story behind the pictures, including the entire set blowing of the edge of a cliff!
Having worked on so many major stills advertising campaigns for clients like De Beers, Revlon, G.H.D. Morello, Caroline Castigliano, Lexus, Hasselblad and Yves Saint Laurent etc. Clive continued to broaden his creative scope by moving on to direct commercials. He has directed for Heinz, Revlon, Hamlet Cigars (winner of The Silver Lion Cannes Film Festival), Rapeed Sunglasses, Greenmail Whitney Beer and music videos of artists like Lee Griffiths, Jamiroquai, Jools Holland, ZTT and Def Leppard and still has ambitions to direct more documentary and film projects.
Clive has worked on the Free Tibet campaign with the Heavy Metal band, Chthonic, in Taiwan and has also photographed portraits of His Holiness the Dalai Lama several times.
Clive recently reinvigorated his long-standing relationship with Japanese design legend Kansai Yamamoto (he designed the clothes for David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust incarnation) and travelled to Japan to work with Kansai photographing his new collection and filming behind the scenes at his ‘Hello Tokyo’ Supershow”.
Clive is a gifted public speaker and storyteller and has also given talks at The Conran Book Shop, Waterstones Piccadilly, Oxford University, Fotografiska Exhibition 2016 (Sweden) and The Masters of Photography Expo, where he presented the awards.
Clive was recently made a fellow of The Royal Photographic Society. His work is also included in the newly released limited edition book VOGUE Voice of The Century (Genesis Publications) and in 50 Years of Pirelli (Taschen publications).
Clive has also just published his first book Arrowsmith: Fashion, Beauty and Portraits (ACC Publishing), which was described by Jeffrey Felner of the prestigious New York Journal of Books as “nothing short of breathtaking”. The book was launched at the prestigious Fashion Museum, London, where Clive enthralled his audience with numerous humorous behind the scene tales of his high profile shoots.