Great Art

“Gentileschi, Hockney, Steve McQueen.” That’s what my diary says, for the first weekend in May. But that’s May 2020, so it didn’t happen. I haven’t been inside an art gallery this year.

So you make up any way you can. My current route is Great Art, on ITV. It’s at 10.30 on a Tuesday night, so thank God for catch-up. But it’s well worth it. This current series of five has just finished - Van Gogh, Monet, Vermeer, Matisse and Renoir. Interested?

I don’t actually like Renoir much, and the biggest collection of his work is in the States - an eccentric benefactor called Barnes bought 180 of them. Thanks to the programme, I can get to look at lots of them, and hear really smart experts talk about them, often in extreme but articulate disagreement with each other. And I can watch a contemporary artist show me how the actual painting process works. All that in an hour, for free. But it’s on ITV hub, where they don’t tell you how long they’ll keep it for. Catch them while you can.