Artist embraced by a plump statesman once (6)
I believe the answer is:
arafat
'statesman once' is the definition.
I can't tell whether this defines the answer.
'artist embraced by a plump' is the wordplay.
'artist' becomes 'RA' (Royal Academician, member of Royal Academy of Arts).
'embraced by' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'plump' becomes 'fat' (synonyms).
'a'+'fat'='afat'
'ra' put into 'afat' is 'ARAFAT'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for arafat that I've seen before include "Yassir -. former Palestinian leader" , "Former PLO leader" , "old statesman" , "Yasser -, former Palestinian leader" , "Palestinian leader, Nobel Peace Prize winner 1994" .)