Viewers chose between a painting by Harris and Gill (Picture: Channel 4)
A painting by sex offender Rolf Harris was saved in controversial programme Jimmy Carr Destroys Art.
The 75-minute special hosted by the comedian saw a live studio audience vote to keep one artwork from a controversial figure, including Hitler, from being destroyed.
At the start of the programme, which aired on Channel 4 on Tuesday, Dom Joly and Nina Power were the experts each attempting to defend a work by Harris and Eric Gill.
Harris, now 92, was convicted of 12 indecent assaults at London’s Southwark Crown Court in June 2014, with one being overturned in 2017.
These included one on an eight-year-old autograph hunter, two on girls in their early teens, and a catalogue of abuse against his daughter’s friend over 16 years.
The Australian-born entertainer was jailed for five years and nine months in 2014 and released on licence in May 2017.
Meanwhile, Gill, a sculptor, who died in 1940, is said to have sexually abused two of his daughters.
Harris was arrested during Operation Yewtree (Picture: Getty Images)
The audience for Jimmy Carr Destroys Art opted to destroy the picture by Gill, described by Power as ‘godless’, which was set alight, while the Harris painting was left alone.
Since Channel 4 announced the show, it has come under fire for being offensive, with the broadcaster running a trigger warning before it aired.
Jimmy Carr Destroys Art has been slammed by viewers (Picture: Getty Images)
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A Holocaust Memorial Group had slammed the special for deciding to feature a work by Hitler, saying: ‘There is nothing entertaining or laughable about Hitler or the murder of six million Jews, and the persecution of millions more.
‘This episode of the television series, Art Trouble, is making Hitler a topic of light entertainment – this is deeply inappropriate, and at a time of increasing Holocaust distortion, dangerously trivialising.
‘The question of how far art can be linked to its creators is an important one, but this programme is simply a stunt for shock value, and cannot excuse the trivialisation of the horrors of Nazism.’
Jimmy Carr Destroys Art is available on All4.
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The show has been very controversial.
