Rolf Harris Exhibitions At Two Newcastle Art Galleries ~ "Britain's Beloved Artist"

Written by Zoe Burnside Sunday, 09 October 2011 22:16

Newcastle, U.K. (Journal Live).- His gentle Ausstralian tone is unmistakable. Generations of youngsters have grown up with Rolf Harris on British TV as the man with the big smile who gave an insight into drawing and art, while many remember him for his music, with hits like 'Two Little Boys', 'Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport' and cover of Led Zeppelin's 'Stairway to heaven'. On Friday 26th March and Saturday 27th March 2011, Rolf will visit two art galleries in Newcastle to unveil some of his new original paintings. These will be exhibited alongside a complete range of his available limited editions. What these will be, however, is sometimes even a mystery to the man himself. “I never really know until I get there which paintings I’ve got on the walls – they keep changing them,” he chuckles. “I tend to get there and see this new exhibition on the walls, and think ‘Oh, OK then, that looks nice’.” It’s no surprise that he often doesn’t know what will be on the walls when you consider the sheer amount of work he has created over the past half century. Rolf Harris CBE will be at the Whitewall Gallery, Grey Street, on Friday, from 6-7.30pm and at The Art Room in Fenwick, both Newcastle, on Saturday from 10.30am-12.30pm.

The Whitewall Gallery in Gray Street is currently presenting a new collection of 10 magnificent new paintings by Rolf, covering everything from the tree-lined canals of Amsterdam, serene waterways of Venice to the vast plains of the Australian outback and awe inspiring wildlife of the Kenyan bush. This collection shows off the versatility, depth and vitality of the work of Britain's most beloved artist.  The Art Room at the Fenwick in Newcastle

Born in Perth, Western Australia, he discovered he had a talent for art at a very young age. Surrounded by pencils and paper at home, drawing was something that came easy to the young Rolf, and while most kids his age were still drawing stick figures, this little boy was experimenting with portraying limbs and real faces. Rolf's love of art began as early as he can remember. Even at Primary School whenever anyone asked him "What are you going to be when you grow up?" his immediate response was "An artist ... AND a good one!" At secondary school his inspirational art master, Frank Mills, recognised and nurtured his natural talent. After leaving school Rolf studied to become a teacher, but continued drawing and painting every spare moment. In 1952 aged 22, he caught a ship out of Australia and headed to London to study art and never really looked back. He enrolled at the City & Guilds Art School in London, wanting to follow in his grandfather's footsteps and become a portrait painter. That was his main aspiration in life. However he found himself doing all sorts of things that didn't really interest him, such as etching. A few years later he landed a role at the BBC and as his confidence grew, so did the number of TV shows he was invited to appear on. A chance meeting at Earl's Court tube station with Australian impressionist painter 'Bill' Hayward Veal changed his life.




As a teenager in Perth, Western Australia, Veal's work in the local art gallery had impressed Rolf so much that on a trip to Sydney with the West Australian swimming team, he had tried, unsuccessfully, to meet Bill with a view to being taught by him. At the time of their meeting in London Bill was running an art course, and though Rolf couldn't afford it he went along anyway. "In this class I tried to impress him with thickly daubed oils on canvas paper, but Bill gave me a real canvas and told me to set up some bottles and other items that I would like to paint. He gave me a brush, some burnt sienna, some rag and a bottle of turpentine and told me to see how little paint I could use. Instead of painting isolated individual parts he told me to tackle the whole canvas all the time. I still do this now, starting off very rough and rugged and then refining later." After the course, Rolf became Veal's protégé. In the mid 50's Rolf's paintings were exhibited in the Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy for two consecutive years, but only recently did he receive an honorary membership from the Royal Society of British Artists.

In 1958 he married Alwen and spent a year on a TV show in Perth, before travelling back to the UK where he continued to appear on screens both as an artist and as an entertainer. Around the same time, his career in music had also taken off. A talented accordion player he wrote his first song, 'Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport' in the late 1950s which soon became his trademark jingle. Throughout the next 50 years he became a favourite with young and old alike. Everyone could tap into Rolf, whether it was for his kids’ TV shows or his music, but it would take some 40 years before he was finally able to get back to his first love, painting. In December 2000, the Harris family held their first ever art show together at the Halcyon Gallery in Birmingham when the works of Rolf, together with the works of his wife Alwen and their daughter Bindi, formed part of an eclectic exhibition of paintings, jewellry, sculpture and etching. When he started filming a TV series called 'Rolf on Art' for the BBC in 2001 he realised that being behind the easel with paint was something he really missed. He was inspired to sit down and paint from a photograph and realised that this was where his heart was. He soon built a studio on to his home and hasn’t stopped since. Now he is back at the top of his game, and has established himself as the UK’s favourite artist. “I love painting, it’s something I will never tire of,” he explains. 'Rolf on Art' is now in its seixth season and that attracts up to 25 million viewers, gaining the highest ratings ever for a programme on the visual arts in the history of television. In November 2002 Rolf received one of the greatest honours possible for any artist when the bulk of his work from the first two series of 'Rolf on Art', was exhibited for a month at the National Gallery, before transferring to the Halcyon Gallery in Mayfair. In 2004 Harris fronted a project to recreate John Constable's famous The Hay Wain painting on a vast scale, with 150 people each contributing to a small section. Each individual canvas was assembled into the full picture live on the BBC, in the show 'Rolf on Art: The Big Event'. He was named as one of the Radio Times's list of the top 40 most eccentric television presenters of all time in July 2004.

The story of Harris's 80th birthday portrait painting of Queen Elizabeth II featured as a special edition of Rolf on Art, broadcast on BBC One on 1 January 2006. Harris's portrait of The Queen was voted by readers of the Radio Times the third favourite portrait of Her Majesty. The royal portrait was exhibited at Buckingham Palace, the Palace of Holyrood House in Edinburgh, and was exhibited on a tour of public galleries in the UK. In September 2006 the Royal Australian Mint launched the first of the new 2007 Silver Kangaroo Collector's Coin series. Harris was commissioned to design the first coin in the series. Harris has presented three series of the BBC art programme Star Portraits with Rolf Harris. In 2007, a documentary A Lifetime in Paint about Harris's work as an artist, from the early years in Australia to the present day, was screened on BBC One, followed by a Rolf On Art special titled 'Rolf on Lowry'. In November 2007 at exhibition of Harris's new paintings was held at Portland Gallery, London.  Harris was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) on 17 June 2006, having previously been created a Member (MBE) in 1968 and an Officer (OBE) in 1977. On 26 January 1989, he was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia (AM).

Talking about the gallery exhibitions in Newcastle, Harris told a local reporter, “I have a real passion for painting animals, I have an almost obsession with African animals, the kind that can kill you and eat you. “Animals like tigers, elephants and leopards genuinely fascinate me. They are amazing, beautiful creatures. They scare me and thrill me at the same time.” His love for these creatures is apparent in his latest collection, which features paintings entitled Zebra and Wildebeest, Lioness Mother and Cub and Tall Tiger on the Prowl. Visit the artists website at ... http://www.rolfharris.com

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