Neiman is a suave, sophisticated man who loves his work and loves to talk about it. Dressed in a fancy denim-style suit, with a long, thin cigar protruding from under his handlebar moustache, he expounds on a score of subjects as if he had all the time in the world. In the adjacent room, the telephone rings almost unceasingly. It is answered by his assistant, who calls out the message to him. More likely than not, it is a request for Neiman's artistic services. "I sketch all the time," he says. "A sketch is not necessarily a study to me. It's a record -- something to consult with. I sketch an awful lot in public. Because when I go someplace and I get bored, I sketch. Everybody forgives me for it. They think I have an uncontrollable desire to draw." His style, says Neiman, "came out of nowhere. It happened very suddenly, about 1954, just before I started with _Playboy_." That magazine recently honored him with an award for being one of the five most important contributors in its 25-year history. During his childhood in Minnesota, recalls Neiman, "I was always drawing pictures and getting special treatment at school -- showing off, copping out of other things. ... I lived a couple of years in England and France." since moving to New York, he has been a constant Westsider. Central Park, says Neiman, "is the West Side's front yard, but the East Side's back yard." Neiman's latest one-man show is an exhibit of approximately 50 serigraphs, etching, and drawings at Hammer Graphics on East 57th Street. Part of the proceeds from sales will go to the U.S. Olympic Committee. "I turn most things down, because they're not stimulating and inspiring," says Neiman matter-of-factly. "Money isn't enough stimulus to do something I don't like. ... I work very hard. I fool around a lot too, but I don't go on vacations. I don't have hobbies. I put my vices within my craft." ******** WESTSIDER ARNOLD NEWMAN Great portrait photographer 12-1-79 When the _Sunday Times_ of London decided to hire someone to photograph 50 leading British citizens for a show at England's National Portrait Gallery, the venerable newspaper caused something of an uproar by choosing an American for the job -- Arnold Newman, one of the world's most important portrait photographers for the past 30 years.