1983 Art House

Sue Perkins charts the changes in British taste towards domestic art by delving into the stories of contemporary bestsellers and charting the history of post-war prints. She discusses Tretchikoff with Red or Dead founder Wayne Hemmingway, and meets bestselling artists and photographers Jack Vettriano, Mel Allen, Spencer Rowell, Martin Elliot and Sam Toft, as well as discussing the interior design revolution with Habitat founder Terence Conran.

Painter and critic Matthew Collings charts the rise of abstract art over the last 100 years, whilst trying to answer a set of basic questions that many people have about this often-baffling art form. How do we respond to abstract art when we see it? Is it supposed to be hard or easy? When abstract artists chuck paint about with abandon, what does it mean? Does abstract art stand for something or is it supposed to be understood as just itself?

Art critic Alastair Sooke delves into the murky world of art theft. Despite the high stakes - and often daring - involved, many cases are shrouded in mystery and go unnoticed by the media. Around 47,000 works of art are reported missing each year, yet it is only the heists involving the world's most valuable paintings that hit the headlines. But high-profile or not - once gone, the works are rarely recovered. Alastair meets one of America’s most notorious art thieves, Myles Connor.

On a spectacular journey through Renaissance Italy, Andrew Graham-Dixon searches for the shadowy figure who wrote one of the most important books on art and looks at some dazzling works, including masterpieces of the early Renaissance by Giotto, Masaccio and Donatello. Giorgio Vasari was the grandaddy of all art critics, travelling Italy in the 16th century for his definitive Lives of the Artists. Scorning medieval Gothic, he praised to the vaulted ceilings the revival of classical art and architecture.

Matthew Collings explores how Turner makes light the vehicle of feeling in his work, and how he found inspiration for that feeling in the waters of the River Thames. Throughout a lifetime of travel, he returned time and again to paint and draw scenes of the Thames, the lifeblood of London. The film reveals the Thames in all its diverse glory, from its beauty in west London, to its heartland in the City of London and its former docks, out to the vast emptiness and drama of its estuary near Margate.

William Burrell made a fortune out of shipping and spent it on art. Over his long life, he assembled one of the most remarkable private collections of paintings, sculptures, tapestries, ceramics and stained glass in the world and in 1944 he donated it all - over 9,000 objects - to the city of Glasgow. The Burrell Collection finally opened to the public in 1983, but the building that bears his name contains no tribute to Burrell and he never commissioned a portrait of himself.

Speaking in Tongues is the fifth studio album by the band Talking Heads, released in 1983. The album was a commercial breakthrough that produced the band's first (and only) American Top 10 hit, "Burning Down the House", which was accompanied by a promotional video.

"Let's Dance" is the 15th studio album by English musician David Bowie. It was originally released in April 1983, almost three years after his previous album, "Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)". Co-produced by Chic's Nile Rodgers, the album contains three of his most successful singles: the title track, "Let's Dance", which reached #1 in the UK, US and various other countries, as well as "Modern Love" and "China Girl", which both reached #2 in the UK. "China Girl" was a new version of a song that Bowie had co-written with Iggy Pop for the latter's 1977 album "The Idiot". It also contains a re-recorded version of the song "Cat People (Putting Out Fire)", which had reached #1 in New Zealand, Norway and Sweden a year earlier.

This album was produced by the band, instead of with an outside producer as had been done with their previous albums. According to the band they chose to do this to make the music sound raw once again, more or less returning to their roots. They were pleased with the results. Essentially, AC/DC wanted to move forward a bit from their current sound and worked hard to go back to the basics.