ROLF HARRIS has come a long way from sketching cartoons at breakneck speed on children’s television in the 1980s. So far, in fact, that his paintings now sell for up to £125,000. Each.

Talking to someone recently who had written a cheque for more than £50,000 to decorate his walls with an original Rolf, I asked why. “I grew up with him, he was part of my childhood, I think it a real privilege to have an original Rolf Harris painting on the wall,” came the reply.

Those born in the early Sixties grew up singing along to his records. You know the ones: Tie Me Kangaroo Down Sport, Two Little Boys and Sun Arise. Somewhere down the line Rolf — now 74 — reached iconic status, with even the catalogues for his art exhibitions now seen as collectors’ items. EBay alone has more than 100 Rolf Harris items for sale on its internet auction site. Truly, this is art for the people.

Paul Green, of Halcyon Gallery, who staged Rolf’s first solo exhibition in Birmingham in 2000 and has worked with him ever since, praises Rolf’s zeal for his work and recalls how on a Saturday night at the International Convention Centre in Birmingham they suddenly found themselves deploying extra security guards because the event had become so successful.

Halcyon, originally a two-man operation based in Birmingham, has expanded and now has showrooms in Central London, including one at Harrods and another at Selfridges. It has always been a bit different from the average art dealership. The firm commits itself to the artists that it works with, buying their art and selling it on — what in the financial world is known as a “bought deal” — rather than simply housing it and selling it on commission. I stumbled on the Rolf Harris treasure trove almost by accident while at a preview of work by the contemporary Italian sculptor Lorenzo Quinn, who is a lot younger than Rolf Harris. A visit to the Halcyon bathroom required me to go downstairs, where I found myself surrounded by Rolf Harris paintings on the lower ground floor.

Halcyon sought out Rolf and staged the first exhibition before the debut of the television show Rolf on Art, but that programme’s success (at its peak it attracted seven million viewers) has undoubtedly convinced many that a Rolf Harris on the wall would be the ultimate in home decoration. When Green first visited Rolf at his house in the late 1990s and persuaded him to exhibit, there were canvases piled up all over the house and originals at the exhibition that followed sold for about £8,000. Nowadays there are fewer original Rolf Harris paintings for sale, but the six-digit price tags do not seem to deter would-be buyers, who queue down the street every time one of his exhibitions opens.

If £125,000 sounds a little steep, there are cheaper options for those who might like a Rolf Harris on the wall. Halcyon does limited edition prints of most originals that range in price from £200 to £1,000. These prints are also exhibited: driving to Beaconsfield for a business meeting just before Christmas, I was guided by yellow AA signs directing me to the “ Rolf Harris Exhibition”. No, Beaconsfield did not get the £100,000-plus originals, but by all accounts the good people of Buckinghamshire were thrilled even to view the prints.

I should not really have been so surprised that the man I remember singing Two Little Boys should now be commanding premium prices for his art. In his youth Rolf was a highly successful amateur swimming champion and financed his move to Britain in his early twenties on the proceeds of art exhibitions that he held in his native Perth, Western Australia. He was even shown at the Royal Academy’s Summer Exhibition a couple of years in succession in the 1950s — a decade before I, like many of his present purchasers, was born.

By the time his art is decorating the walls of our great-grandchildren’s houses, will original Rolf Harris paintings be worth the prices paid for them now? In a sense this hardly matters to the hundreds of people who own one of his paintings or prints. The man is a legend. And just think of the talking point that a Rolf Harris on the wall will be when your guests discover it, even if, like me, they spot it on their way to the lavatory.

www.halcyongallery.com for details of exhibitions of original Rolf Harris paintings; www.halcyon.co.uk for his limited edition prints

What's on

AUCTION: Sotheby’s is offering some of Picasso’s drawings from the Berggruen Sketchbook on February 9. 020-7293 5355, www.sothebys.com.

SHOWS: The Ideal Home Show will be running from March 3 to March 28 at Earls Court, London, with celebrity presenters and innovative ideas on design. 0870 6066080, www.idealhomeshow.co.uk

SHOPPING: Ikea will be opening a new branch in Edmonton, North London, at 12.01am on February 10. The furniture chain’s first midnight launch will feature plenty of special offers throughout the early hours. www.ikea.com

EXHIBITION: The Architectural Association is presenting At the Bath House by Klein Dytham Architecture from February 19 to March 18. The installation, pictured above, has a virtual pool in which you can lounge while you peruse images that have inspired the practice. 020-7887 4145, www.aaschool.ac.uk

TELEVISION: Colin McAllister and Justin Ryan will be showing people How Not to Decorate tonight on Five at 9pm. Horrors include a wood-clad living room and a 1970s-style kitchen.

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