Wales Feed

Rolf Harris collects Bafta Fellowship

2012-05-28T10:54:25+00:00

Artist and presenter Rolf Harris was awarded a prestigious Bafta Fellowship at last night's awards ceremony for his "outstanding and exceptional contribution to television".

Harris, whose grandparents hailed from Merthyr Tydfil, told BBC News: "It's unbelievable for a start, it's very humbling and thrilling. I can't tell you how exciting it was when they asked if I would accept the award."

Rolf Harris at Cyfarthfa Castle Museum in front of portraits by his grandfather GF Harris

Rolf's grandfather George Frederick Harris was a noted portrait painter. He revisited some of his grandfather's works at the Cyfarthfa Castle Museum and Art Gallery during the series Rolf on Welsh Art. Browse a photo gallery of images taken from the episode.

In this clip from the series, Rolf heads back to his Welsh artistic roots and Merthyr to find out more about GF Harris and attempts to paint in the style of Wales-based Australian artist Shani Rhys James.

Watch more clips from the television series and browse photo galleries from the episodes on Graham Sutherland, Josef Herman and Sir Kyffin Williams.

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Rolf Harris at National Museum Cardiff

2011-02-15T15:45:57+00:00

Rolf Harris will be at the National Museum Cardiff tomorrow, Wednesday 16 February, to talk about the new BBC Cymru Wales television series Rolf on Welsh Art.

Rolf Harris with his wobble board during filming of Rolf on Welsh Art

The programme starts on BBC One Wales on Wednesday at 7.30pm, and Rolf is set to appear at the Cardiff museum and gallery to talk about the new series and answer questions in conversation with BBC Radio Wales Arts Show presenter Nicola Heywood Thomas.

The session is free and begins at 2pm, and everyone is welcome. Find out more on the National Museum Wales website.

Rolf On Welsh Art paintings go on show

2011-02-08T11:35:44+00:00

Five new paintings by acclaimed artist and entertainer Rolf Harris will be going on show at museums and galleries around Wales as part of a new BBC Cymru Wales arts series Rolf on Welsh Art.

The paintings, which were created for the series, feature Rolf's attempts at creating a work in the styles of the four featured artists - Sir Kyffin Williams, Graham Sutherland, Josef Herman and Shani Rhys James.

Each episode of the four-part series sees Rolf visiting the areas where the artists worked, hearing about them and their work through friends, family and experts, and putting into practice what he learns to commit his own tribute to canvas.

Rolf Harris

Rolf had to tackle challenges he had never faced in his artistic life before, including:

painting entirely with a palette knife in the style of Sir Kyffin
viewing himself in a hand mirror to paint, as Shani Rhys James does
picking up objects from Pembrokeshire to incorporate into his interpretation of Graham Sutherland
redoing his version of his Josef Herman as his first effort wasn't "monumental" enough

You can see how he fares with the differing styles in the series Rolf on Welsh Art, which begins on BBC One Wales on Wednesday 16 February at 7.30pm.

BBC Cymru Wales has worked in partnership with the four museums and galleries to enable audiences across Wales to come face to face with Rolf's work.

The paintings can be viewed at the following partnership venues:

Oriel Ynys Mon, Llangefni, from 4 February
Glynn Vivian Gallery, Swansea, from 7 February
Oriel Y Parc, St Davids, from 11 February
National Museum Cardiff, from 16 February

Each gallery contains the original most closely associated with their area and some will also display reproductions of the others. Glynn Vivian will display two originals in the style of Josef Herman - a first watercolour attempt, which Rolf declared "a good representation" but not like Herman's, and a second painted in oils, which he is most satisfied with of all the four tributes.

Rolf Harris himself will be visiting National Museum Cardiff on Wednesday 16 February to talk about the series and answer questions in conversation with BBC Radio Wales Arts Programme presenter Nicola Heywood-Thomas. The session is free and begins at 2pm.

Read a story about Rolf's painting of Bryn Terfel's father Hefin Jones, on display at Oriel Ynys Mon, on the BBC Wales News website.

Rolf On Welsh Art

2011-02-07T17:28:51+00:00

The exuberant Rolf Harris goes in search of some of the greatest artists to be inspired by Wales in a new series Rolf on Welsh Art (Wednesday 16 February, BBC One Wales).

In the series Rolf, whose own family hail from Merthyr Tydfil, looks at the landscapes and the people who inspired the late great Sir Kyffin Williams, Graham Sutherland, Josef Herman and Shani Rhys James - like Rolf, an Australian who has long lived in Britain.

And in each of the four episodes, Rolf tackles a tricky challenge - trying to paint a picture in the style of each of the artists.

"I think everybody looks at something in a different way. You've got to enjoy the end result and just wonder how you'd go about painting it if you had the chance. Would you be able to tackle it?" says Rolf of his attempts to capture the essence of each of the four's styles on canvas. "But it's really a shock when you try and paint something as someone else does it. They have been doing it for years and years and you try it for the first time, and if it doesn't work, that's such a shock," he says.

Of the several styles he tried out, he believes his most successful was his tribute to Josef Herman, a Polish émigré who set up a studio in Ystradgynlais in the 1940s to paint some of the most enduring images of the working man ever seen.

His subject was the Welsh miners, who he portrayed as mighty figures, similar, Rolf feels, to the statues on Easter Island.

"He painted them as heroic figures because that's the way he saw Welsh miners - as heroes," says Rolf of Herman. "I think it was the first time that most people had ever had that pointed out to them, that these men were so heroic, so courageous and gutsy, braving possible death underground at every step. He had nothing but admiration for them and that came out in his paintings."

The series starts with a look at the life and work of Sir Kyffin on his beloved Anglesey. The painter was a personal friend of Rolf, who reminisces about the artist as he finds his sitter for his Sir Kyffin-style painting, farmer Hefin Jones - otherwise known as the father of opera star Bryn Terfel.

"That was one of my favourite moments - painting Hefin," says Rolf. "I managed to get a really good likeness, but it didn't finish up anywhere near as good as the many palette knife portraits Kyffin had made of so many Welsh people.

"I found I was using the tip of the palette knife to paint a lot of things in tiny detail, whereas he seemed to use the great flat areas of the knife blade to smooth things across. The more I painted, or tried to paint in his style, the more I realised just how absolutely brilliant he was, just so incredibly good!"

In this first programme, Rolf also takes a trip up the Snowdonia Mountain Railway and visits Oriel Ynys Mon in Llangefni, where many of Sir Kyffin's paintings are now housed. And the gallery is taking delivery of Rolf's own original picture of Hefin Jones which will be on public display from today.

And there's a chance to catch up with even more Welsh art in a companion series, Framing Wales, which starts on 24 February on BBC Two Wales. Kim Howells presents his personal view of the abundance of great painters and paintings that emerged from Wales during the 20th century.