Hello, I'm Kirstie Young and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive

for rights reasons we've had to shorten the music. The program was originally broadcast

in 1992 and the presenter was Sue Lolley.

My cast away this week is an art historian. His most famous book, The Story of Art,

was written more than 40 years ago for children, but its appeal to people of all ages has made it

the world's most popular introduction to great artists and their work. It's author came to

Britain in 1936 having been brought up and educated in Vienna. He's held many important academic

posts and received many honours. He lives quite modestly in Hampstead, surrounded not so much by

pictures as by books. He doesn't want to own art, but to help us appreciate it, hoping always for

a return to the time when he says art was a part of the mental furniture of civilised men and

women. He is so enst Gombrie. So much was art a part of your mental furniture, Professor Gombrie,

that I think I'm writing saying you were able to write your best cellar. The story of art off

the cuff as it were, a secretary came to your house and you simply dictated it. Yes, it is more

less correct. I mean I had illustrations at home which I used, but I didn't plan very much and

I certainly didn't didn't draft what I was to dictate. It just flowed. It more or less flowed.

So 40 years on, 16 editions, millions of copies, 20 different languages. Do you remain surprised

by its success? I'm afraid it was 15 editions so far. Yes, I was immensely surprised by its success

and never expected anything like it. I'd like to talk more about the book later, but let me go back

to your mental furniture. If art was so much a part of it, I dare say music was also, it must have

been. Very much so and still is. My mother was a pianist and she was a pupil of the famous

Leszytsky and also his assistant. My sister is a violinist who was a pupil of art of push

and we very recently still played three or together with my wife who is a pianist and the

...