A FATHER’S portrait of his teenage daughter is among works Port Stephens Council has had restored after the April 2015 storm.
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With love and care those works have been nursed back to health and are back on display at Raymond Terrace Library.
In Pensive Mood won the Raymond Terrace Art Competition in 1975. It like many other winning pieces came into council’s collection this way over the years.
“I was the only child who would sit still for him long enough,” Coralie Wilks said of dad William Sweeney.
“We wouldn’t talk, we just sat in silence, while he concentrated. It was a comfortable silence.”
Mr Sweeney died nine years ago but this piece among other’s are part of the amateur artist’s legacy. He refused to work from photographs and had a talent for seascapes through to still life.
The former seafarer served with the navy in World War II and later worked as an electrician for the Commonwealth Bank.
“He couldn’t wait to retire and get stuck into his art,” Mrs Wilks said.
“This piece is something nice to remember him by.”
The council has 50 such works in its collection and about half of them were water damaged. It spent $15,000 restoring the pieces – a selection of which went on display this week in the library’s art space.