I ONCE painted a portrait in oils of Sir Winston Churchill. He didn't sit for me, I'm sorry to say. I painted it when a schoolboy, as a tribute to the great statesman.

It wasn’t a success. My mother failed to recognise him and thought my work depicted either Pinky or Perky, the puppet pigs who were regulars on the telly at the time.

I mention my Sir Winston only to indicate that my credentials as an art critic are about as thin as a cartoon of Kate Moss.

Nonetheless, I’d like to doff my beret in salute to Bournemouth for the artwork on the wall of Kinson Hub library, inspired by John Constable’s Hay Wain.

The photo collage, designed by David Harbott, is a bold initiative that should engage everyone who sees it. It would impress an impressionist. Well done.

But it does raise one curious question. Why didn’t someone do something similar with the huge ugly wall of the Imax building that you can’t miss as you go down Bath Hill?

Perhaps they could have erected a giant Mona Lisa on it (though some would say there are enough of us Monas in town already.) Or how about a huge depiction of Munch’s Scream, to characterise the reaction of so many people when the Imax first went up?

Or what about a splendid seascape. Depicting something like ‘View from Bath Hill over Poole Bay towards Old Harry Rocks’? Remember that? I’m told it used to be lovely.

Or how about another Constable?

(Still, you know what they say… there’s never one of those around when you need one.)