Michael Joseph

Michael Joseph (b. 1942, Johannesburg) is a South African-born British photographer whose career has spanned advertising, editorial and rock-music portraiture across more than five decades. He moved to London in the early 1960s and spent the second half of the decade as one of the most sought-after photographers in British advertising — but his enduring fame rests on a single weekend in June 1968.

Joseph was the photographer commissioned to shoot The Rolling Stones at Sarum Chase, a neo-Gothic mansion off West Heath Road in Hampstead, for the cover and inner sleeve of their album 'Beggars Banquet'. Over two days he produced one of the great rock-and-roll shoots of the 20th century: the band drinking, sprawled in the grand drawing room, playing cricket on the lawn, mock-jousting with mandolins. The session yielded the famous 'classic' line-up portrait, the Mick-and-Keith-drinking image, and the unused 'rock-pile' compositions that have since been printed as limited editions for collectors. Decca refused the original lavatory-wall cover and the band were forced to release the album with a plain white sleeve — meaning Joseph's reportage from Sarum Chase has, in retrospect, become the album's true visual record.

Joseph's broader practice ranges across fashion, advertising and reportage; he has shot for British Vogue, the Sunday Times Magazine and dozens of major brand campaigns. His Beggars Banquet series is held in private collections internationally and is regularly exhibited as a body of work in its own right. Each print is hand-signed by the artist and produced as a limited edition.