About the artist
Clive McBain was born in the West Country in 1940 and moved to London with his family in the late 1940s.
His family were working people, there was no artistic background at home; but the young Clive always had a great love of art and a lucky meeting with an art student led him to applying and being accepted at Willesden College and then Brighton College to study Fine Art. He then joined the new graphic diploma department.
His talents soon proved themselves, he won three national poster competitions and on graduating, made the natural transition into advertising as an art director in a leading London advertising agency.
His subsequent success - co-founder of McBain-Noel Jonhson & Co Limited a design consultancy which was launched on a shoestring and swiftly became one of the major players in the field. The company was based at number 7 Fitzroy Square, London, W1. In 1987 was taken over by AMV plc.
In 1992 he took the major decision to devote himself entirely to painting at his beautiful country house and the distinctive McBain style has developed in the ensuing years; largely inspired by the beautiful sweeps of landscape and forgotten corners of West Sussex.
Clive has sold illustrations and paintings as far as South Africa, Australia, America, Chile and many European countries.
His work has been featured on Meridian Television, in Reader's Digest, the Daily Mail, Sussex Life and extensively in the Sussex press.
He has exhibited in London and across the south, but his greatest pleasures come closer to home, most notably his succession of one-man shows at Petworth House.
A critique by Philippa Gregory