Andy Hollingworth

Andy Hollingworth is a British photographer, renowned for his portraits of figures from the world of comedy.

Background He took up photography in 1986 while still at college in London and began documenting comedians in 1995. One of his most vivid childhood memories is seeing his grandfather sitting watching television and laughing at Charlie Williams on The Golden Shot. His particular style of photography and his deep understanding of comedy and his subjects has made him build long relationships with many comedians such as Bill Bailey (photographed more than 40 times), Phill Jupitus, Rhod Gilbert, Dylan Moran, and has been referred to by Sarah Millican as "her favourite photographer" in her book How to be Champion.

Outside the comedy industry, he has photographed an eclectic range cultural figures; Ian McKellen, Billy Bragg, Simon Armitage, Ken Loach Jim Broadbent, Jarvis Cocker, Carol Ann Duffy, Willy Russell, Graham Dean, Richard Dawkins, Roger McGough, Anthony Gormley and Brian Cox.

His work has toured in several major exhibitions and he has been published in The Independent, The Big Issue, the Daily Express, The Times, the Journal of the Royal Photographic Society He rarely gives interviews and has described his work as "just a Sunday hobby".

He had two solo exhibitions, Reverse Angle: Andy Hollingworth Portraits 2005–2014 in 2014 at The Grosvenor Museum in Chester, Cheshire.

Running from Greenbaum in 2015 ran in London at the former "Snap" Gallery in Picadilly Arcade, from 13 August to 19 September and proved so popular that it got extended by a week.

Hollingworth's photographs are also included in the collections of the National Portrait Gallery.

Recently, his work has "taken a left turn" and Hollingworth is now building a huge archive of objects belonging to comedians. This massive work of documentation has been making progress and reports objects as early as 1840s belonging to Grimaldi to our times. He has now become an authority on "Little Tich", a British comedian well known for his "Big Boots dance" routine in the early century.