Rolf Harris claims to have loved art as far back as he can remember. When asked what he wanted to be when he left school he would reply “an artist… and a good one!!” At high school, his tutor recognised and encouraged his natural artistic talent. When he left school, he studied to be a teacher but continued to paint in his spare time.
At the age of 22, Rolf left Australia to study painting in England. His trip was financed by the four exhibitions of paintings he had already held in his home town of Perth.
Enrolling at the City & Guilds Art School in London, Rolf wanted to become a portrait painter like his grandfather but found himself doing many different types of art that didn’t interest him, such as etching. Then a chance meeting at Earl’s Court underground station with Australian impressionist painter Bill Hayward Veal changed his life.
Rolf was a fan of Veal’s since viewing an exhibition in a local art gallery and had tried unsuccessfully to meet Veal to ask if he could teach him. At the time of their meeting, Veal was teaching an art course which Rolf could scarcely afford, but he went along despite this. Rolf claims that he tried unsuccessfully to impress his new mentor by using thickly daubed oils on canvas paper, but Veal gave him a real canvas and told him to set up some items that he would like to paint. He then gave him a brush, some burnt sienna, some rag and a bottle of turpentine and asked him to use as little paint as he could. This lesson was invaluable to Rolf, and he still follows his mentor’s advice. Rolf eventually was to become Veal’s protégée.
Recently, he received an honorary membership from the Royal Society of British Artists. In December 2000, the Harris family held their first ever art show together at the Halcyon Gallery in Birmingham when the works of Rolf, his wife Alwen and daughter Bindi were displayed.
In 2001, Rolf’s BBC television programme “Rolf on Art” attracted over 24.5 million viewers over a period of 4 weeks, which gained the highest ratings ever for an art programme in the history of television. Last year a book was launched, called the same as the television show to accompany it. November 2002 saw Rolf receive one of the greatest honours possible for an artist when the majority of his art from the television programme was exhibited for a month at the National Gallery before transferring to the Halcyon Galley in Mayfair.
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