Peter Arnold:
The Art of Life

Photographer. Painter. Designer. Perfectionist. Peter Arnold is an art machine. A polymath. A man with graceful, cat-like movements and an adroit, restless energy. Painting in the morning in his studio at the old Gas Works in Chelsea, shooting film with his trusty Hasselblad as the afternoon light turns pastel, turning what he shoots into fashion designs before bedtime. "You don't have to be a workaholic, but it helps."

We are sitting in the magical garden at his flat in Sloane Square, one of London's most chic addresses…the flat, Peter adds in a stage whisper, where Lady Diana stayed when she was 19 and worked as a kindergarten teacher in nearby Pimlico. Princess Di's flat. Sir Elton John wrote the introduction to his legendary book Tulips, and Queen Beatrice of the Netherlands presents the book as her official gift.

Peter may feel blessed by fate, but the fates only smile on those tempting them with their labour. For his iconic anthology Men Exposed, Peter not only took the photographs, he controlled the entire process, laying out the pages, designing the text and cover. The compilation of male nudes was an instant sell-out and now, during those long afternoons while the paint dries on his vivacious canvases, he is preparing Black Adonis, a new collection of nudes designed to show what he believes is overlooked in white dominated society: the essential beauty of black men. As with his painting and designs, he is moved by aesthetics, and has no interest in the homo-erotic aspect of nudity. His models are amateurs, guys working in the stores in the King's Road, "striking men not fully aware of their own beauty."

"More women than men bought Men Exposed," he says with a look of surprise on his delicately carved features. I leaf through the pages and he seems boyishly pleased when I tell him it doesn't seem surprising to me. What woman in her right mind wouldn't enjoy them?

Each shot conveys a feeling of balance and harmony, but what draws my eye is the luminous skin tones and delicate arrangement of light and form. That might have something to do with Peter's loyalty to film, but then again it could be the blend of unguents he rubs into his models before a shoot. After the oiling, he adds highlights with a different cream that accentuates the light and gives his shots the elegiac quality that makes a Peter Arnold portrait unmistakeable. His studio is an alchemist's stash with bottles and jars arranged on the shelves. He is thinking about creating a range of men’s cosmetics, but not until after he's pinned down a collection of diaphanous summer dresses and scarves featuring prints from his flower photos.

Not a bad idea, but Laura Ashley has already taken some of his prints for a swimwear collection and Alexander McQueen created an autumn range of dresses using Peter's images of orchids, the vibrant blooms on a shimmering black fabric that brought the fashionistas to their feet on the Paris catwalk and tempted Naomi Campbell to pose in them. Peter’s orchid photos will go into another book. "I'm going to ask Elizabeth Taylor to write the introduction," he says with the confidence of someone certain the actress will agree. As for the tulips, their colourful eroticism will be ideal for McQueen's dramatic fashion sense.

Peter Arnold came to photography by chance. His sister had been a model for David Bailey, among others, but no one had captured her the way he saw her. He took some snaps and a couple of the prints found their way into her portfolio. Someone saw those shots and offered him an assignment. Peter was 19 and had no idea what it really entailed to be a photographer, but he bluffed his way through and those first shots were good enough for Barry Lategan to take him on as his assistant. Lategan shot the first pictures of Twiggy (the first supermodel), and besides doing the 1988 Pirelli Calendar he was a regular for Vogue. Peter believes Lategan was the first photographer to understand studio lighting, and this was the ideal education for him. With Lategan, he travelled the world learning the creative dynamic of the fashion industry.

When he finally set up his own studio in London, he didn't follow Lategan's footsteps. Peter does his own thing. He started photographing schoolchildren. Parents had never seen work like this before. He captured the very soul of the children who posed before his lens and the orders flooded in so fast he took the money and ran off back around the globe. To take travel portraits? "Well, not really," he says with a shrug. He started buying vintage aeroplanes and shipping them back to England, where they were restored and sold to museums throughout the world.

Peter really deserves a biography, and in the meantime we haven't even talked about his painting. "One day, I saw an antique easel in a shop window and thought, I'd love to paint," he explains. "I'm very obsessive. I took one lesson and now its part of my life." He looks faintly embarrassed when he admits that at his first show he sold every canvas and puts his success down to his bold use of colour.

"Beyond being creative, I believe painting and photography are a science; the way one uses complimentary colours, the balance of light and shade, the graphic form of the subject. Photography helped me to learn how to paint light on canvas and now my painting is making me a better photographer."

The problem for Peter is he doesn't want to be pinned-down and pigeonholed. Creativity drives his daily life. He doesn't want to be fashionable. He does what appeals to him and turns it into art, the garden with the stone Buddha on the banks of a pond, an oasis of calm in the heart of London; the geometric simplicity of the living room; even the symmetry of his features and faintly greying hair are oddly classical. Does Peter Arnold have any plans for the future? "Zillions," he says, and pulls an offending weed from the flower bed.

Limited Edition Prints can be purchased from www.menexposed.co.uk