Letter: Modern vulgarity

Sir: George Melly's put down of Picasso's ceramics as "vulgar and silly" ("Carry on up the Cote d'Azur", 4 December) would seem to strengthen the writer John Carey's view that Modernism as a movement was a self-conscious attempt to distance art from the newly literate hoi polloi that began to develop in the nineteenth century.

However, as a member of that hoi polloi (who has enjoyed George's act over the years) I have to question whether someone whose musical output includes Shave 'em Dry and My Canary has Circles under his Eyes is in any position to condemn Picasso.

JOHN PILGRIM

Yoxford, Suffolk