By the time Rolf left Australia and moved to London at the age of 22, on what he thought would be a years study leave, he had already held four exhibitions of his art and these, by and large, financed the trip.

Enrolling in the City and Guilds Art School in London, Rolf was a bit nonplussed to find that he was doing all sorts of things that he wasn't interested in, like etching, whereas all he wanted to do was follow in his Grandfather's footsteps and become a portrait painter. Years after he realised he must have been doing a Foundation course, but at the time he didn't understand this and just drifted out of art school, a very disillusioned young man.

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 Perth's Art Gallery had impressed him 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. Small world!. Bill took Rolf under his wing in London and taught his willing pupil the rudiments of his own approach to painting. To this day Rolf still works by `defocusing' his eyes, painting the blur that he sees and gradually refining it.

As his embryo television career started to take off, Rolf moved on from doing the simple line drawings for children to painting at lighting speed huge 12 ft by 9 ft pictures, all based on a simplified version of Bill Veal's approach. While he is perhaps best known by the younger generation for drawing cartoons on television, Rolf has received great acclaim for his more `serious' paintings. He has exhibited at the Royal Academy in London and this year received an honorary membership from the Royal Society of British Artists, joining a distinguished list that includes James McNeil, Whistler and Sir Winston Churchill.

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