Simon Schama's Power of Art

Latest Episodes

• Season 1 Episode 8: Rothko

  The historian recounts the story behind the creation of Mark Rothko's suite of paintings, commissioned in 1958 for the Four Seasons restaurant in New York's Seagram Building. The artist declared he wanted to ruin diners' appetites by creating work that demanded their attention - an attempt he saw as the ultimate test of art's power in the modern world. Last in series

  Next on: Thursday 17th December 2:00am EST - WMPTDT2 (WMPT-DT2) (PBS)
• Season 1 Episode 7: Picasso

  The historian recounts artist Pablo Picasso's attempts to create a 'modern history' painting, based on the bombing of the ancient town of Guernica by the Luftwaffe. Instead of making a literal social commentary, he wanted to depict accurately where he felt the horrors of the world came from - the human psyche. Part of The Art of Arts TV week

• Season 1 Episode 6: Van Gogh

  The historian recounts the inspiration behind Vincent van Gogh's Wheat Field With Crows - a work created in the summer of 1890 that saw him hailed as a visionary genius only weeks before he killed himself. Schama charts van Gogh's early life as an art dealer, teacher and preacher, and Andy Serkis plays the troubled artist in a dramatisation of events