And for some of those people, the reason they’re still thinking about the painting is because it still exists.

It feels redundant to point this out, but it bears saying again — destroying artwork, no matter who it is by or what they have done, starts us on a very slippery slope.

The argument, as made by some local artists, that it is not a very good work of art to start with is irrelevant because it is a completely subjective point of view.

The important point to be made is that destroying one artwork because of the artist’s actions makes it all the easier to destroy another and another. 

People remain angry about what Harris and sex offenders like him have done, and rightly so, but the art is not the artist. If we’re going to start destroying art because of the artist, it will be a long time before we stop and civilisation will be all the poorer for what we have done.

Let’s run through a quick list: Caravaggio killed a man and was possibly a paedophile, Picasso was a serial adulterer, and Rubens married his 16-year-old niece. Should we destroy their artworks? 

And what if it had been decided, in the wake of their deeds, that their artworks should be destroyed? That is a travesty that would not have been able to have been undone.

But let’s not stop at one type of art. If you destroy one Rolf Harris mural, why not destroy any music or films featuring or by Roman Polanski (drugged and raped a 13-year-old girl), Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page (sex with a 14-year-old girl), Sean Penn (beat his then-wife Madonna), Gary Glitter (convicted paedophile) and Mark Wahlberg (involved in a number of racially motivated assaults)? 

Harris has been punished. Destroying his artwork would be momentarily satisfying but ultimately the act of destruction will be forgotten. 

If his work remains, even covered up, then we can never forget what he did and it can serve as a perpetual reminder of the evil spectre of sexual abuse that lurks in our society.