| Rolf on Art | |
|---|---|
| Starring | Rolf Harris |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| Original language | English |
| No. of series | 5 |
| No. of episodes | 28 |
| Production | |
| Running time | 30 minutes |
| Original release | |
| Network | BBC |
| Release | 18 November 2001 – 30 December 2007 |
Rolf on Art is a British art television series made by the BBC. It is hosted by Rolf Harris, the Australian television presenter. The series began in 2001, and the most recent episode was made in 2007. It was followed by Harris's other art programme, Star Portraits with Rolf Harris , which was released after the success of Rolf on Art.
Each episode revolved around Harris looking at a various notable artist from history, and both investigating their life as well as imitating their style of art.
Unlike many other art presenters, Harris did not just look and talk about an artist's work: he created works in their own style. This was a key part of the shows' success. For each episode, he usually painted two pictures in their style, normally in the same place where they created their works. Some episodes were big events, which were held in a public place, such as Trafalgar Square in London. Harris presented these but many other people (both celebrities and the general public) were enlisted to paint.
In the first series, from 2001, Harris looked at the Impressionists, a group he has a great affinity for:
In the second series, he looked at several artists who worked around and after the time of the Impressionists, but were not Impressionists.
In this special, Harris looked at Christmas card making. The card he produced was mass-produced and sold for charity that year.
Harris went on a tour of Africa, looking at different styles on African art, including rock art, Makonde wood carving and Benin Bronzes. It was released to coincide with the Live 8 festival in 2005 and the series of programmes on the BBC about Africa.
This special, broadcast on BBC One on 1 January 2006, showed the creation of Harris's 80th birthday portrait painting of Queen Elizabeth II. [1] It was highly publicised because the Queen had never been seen on such a programme before. In it, Harris goes to Buckingham Palace where he meets the Queen and paints her in an impressionist style. It is debatable whether it was a part of the Rolf on Art series, because it does not contain the title sequence or Rolf on Art in the title. However, it was advertised as a Rolf on Art special.
A one-off special, aired on 4 March 2007, where Harris followed in the footsteps of the painter L. S. Lowry. This is different from the season three episode on Lowry.
A one-off special, aired on 30 December 2007. Harris looked at the work of illustrator Beatrix Potter.
This series was commissioned by and only shown on BBC One Wales. It aired from 16 February to 9 March 2011. It took the same format as the original series, with each episode focusing on a different Welsh artist. The episode on Shani Rhys James was the first profile of a living artist, meaning as part of the programme Harris was able to meet the artist herself.
The second series began airing on 12 October 2012 but has since ended following Harris's 2013 arrest on charges of indecent assault making indecent images of a child.
A Rolf on Art book was released for the first series. It contained sections on how he worked, as well as a section on each of the artists he looked at in the series. An updated version was released for the second series.
Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities, ordinary subject matter, unusual visual angles, and inclusion of movement as a crucial element of human perception and experience. Impressionism originated with a group of Paris-based artists whose independent exhibitions brought them to prominence during the 1870s and 1880s.
Rolf Harris was an Australian musician, television personality, painter, and actor. He often used unusual instruments like the didgeridoo and the Stylophone in his performances, and is credited with the invention of the wobble board. He was convicted in England in 2014 of the sexual assault of four underage girls, which effectively ended his career.
Laurence Stephen Lowry was an English artist. His drawings and paintings mainly depict Pendlebury, Greater Manchester as well as Salford and its vicinity.
Griffith Rhys Jones is a Welsh actor, comedian, writer and television presenter. He starred in a number of television series with his comedy partner, Mel Smith. He and Smith came to national attention in the 1980s for their work in the BBC television comedy sketch shows Not the Nine O'Clock News and Alas Smith and Jones.
Thomas William Roberts was an English-born Australian artist and a key member of the Heidelberg School art movement, also known as Australian impressionism.
National Museum Cardiff is a museum and art gallery in Cardiff, Wales. The museum is part of the wider network of Amgueddfa Cymru – Museum Wales. Entry is kept free by a grant from the Welsh Government.
Mervyn Levy was a Welsh artist, art teacher and writer on art. Born in Swansea, where he became a friend of the painter Alfred Janes, the poet Dylan Thomas and the musician Daniel Jones, he spent most of his teaching career in Bristol and London, and made several popular television series about painting techniques. He published monographs on contemporary artists, and a catalogue raisonnee of the works of his friend the painter L. S. Lowry.
MOMA Machynlleth or Museum of Modern Art, Machynlleth is an arts centre and gallery adjacent to Y Tabernacl in Machynlleth, Powys, Wales.
Rhys Thomas is a British director, producer, actor, comedian and writer.
Star Portraits with Rolf Harris is a BBC television series that ran for three seasons from 2004-07. The show features three artists who each paint a picture of a celebrity, and then the celebrity gets to choose which paintings to keep. It was presented by Australian entertainer Rolf Harris.
Anne Lucinda Hartley Rice, known professionally as Anneka Rice, is a Welsh-born television and radio presenter, journalist and painter.
Welsh art is the traditions in the visual arts associated with Wales and its people. Most art found in, or connected with, Wales is essentially a regional variant of the forms and styles of the rest of the British Isles, a very different situation from that of Welsh literature. The term Art in Wales is often used in the absence of a clear sense of what "Welsh art" is, and to include the very large body of work, especially in landscape art, produced by non-Welsh artists in Wales since the later 18th century.
Hjalmar Eilif Emanuel Peterssen was a Norwegian painter. He is most commonly associated with his landscapes and portraits. He gained early recognition for the history painting Christian II signing the Death Warrant of Torben Oxe and established himself as one of Norway's foremost portrait painters, with portraits of, among others, Henrik Ibsen and Edvard Grieg. He also became known for his landscape paintings, and became part of the artist circle known as the Skagen Painters. He also became known for his design in 1905 of Norway's national coat of arms with the Norwegian lion, which was used by the government and the royal house. The design is still used in the royal coat of arms and the royal flag.
Douglas William Squires was an English choreographer, known best for his work in television from the mid-1950s. He was born in Nottingham.
Nathan Wyburn is a contemporary Welsh artist and media personality who has created celebrity portraits (iconography) and pop culture imagery using non-traditional media such as foodstuffs and other household items, including most notably working with Marmite on toast.
Shani Rhys James MBE is a Welsh painter based in Llangadfan, Powys. She has been described as "arguably one of the most exciting and successful painters of her generation" and "one of Wales' most significant living artists". She was elected to the Royal Cambrian Academy of Art in 1994. In the 2006 New Years Honours she was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) for "services to art".
Osi Rhys Osmond was a Welsh painter and an occasional television and radio presenter.
Charles Harris is a British painter, art instructor and teacher.
Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II – An 80th Birthday Portrait is a 2005 oil painting of Queen Elizabeth II by Rolf Harris, commissioned by the BBC for the Queen's 80th birthday. It was unveiled at the Queen's Gallery in Buckingham Palace and publicly displayed there from 2005 to 2006. A BBC television special about its creation, The Queen, by Rolf, was broadcast on BBC One on 1 January 2006. The painting was voted the second-most-favoured portrait of the Queen by the British public, but it was critically derided.
