| By :
Martin Hofschroer
Rolf Harris is responsible for encouraging a generation of people to invest in art supplies and start painting. The Australian entertainer has been involved with art for 65 years and his infectious enthusiasm has helped ignite a creative spark in millions of British school children over the years. Rolf's artistic talents first appeared on our screens in 1953 when he presented a regular ten-minute cartoon drawing show on the BBC and by 1967 he fronted The Rolf Harris Show, which ran for seven years. It was on The Rolf Harris Show where the antipodean coined his famous catchphrase "can you tell what it is yet?" in which he would invite the audience and viewers to guess what he was creating with his art supplies. Harris' artistic television career continued through the 1970s and '80s when he hosted Cartoon Time and Rolf's Cartoon Club on ITV, where he would try to inspire youngsters to start drawing and painting. The octogenarian really hit the big time when he fronted the show Rolf on Art which remains the most watched arts programme ever screened on British television with over seven million viewers. . Rolf revealed to the London Student newspaper that he would love to do more episodes of Rolf on Art because he feels that it makes art more accessible to people who would otherwise avoid going to galleries or exhibitions. He told the newspaper: "I'd love to do some more Rolf on Art programmes. I find it so rewarding to be able to demystify art for the general public and let them know they can have a go. "I think I have done a lot to let people know that they don't have to be afraid to go to an art gallery and if they don't understand its OK - a lot of the artists don't either!" Such is Rolf's popularity with the British public that they named him as the most famous artist in the world in a 1992 poll. The survey asked 1,000 visitors to the London ArtMart exhibition to name the world's most famous artist and 38 per cent of people responded by saying Rolf Harris, while 23 per cent said Romantic English painter John Constable. It was also discovered by the Daily Telegraph that more people preferred the work of Rolf Harris to that of Damien Hirst. Rolf Harris was also included in a list of the top 40 most eccentric TV presenters of all time in a 2004 Radio Times poll.
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