Volume 48, No. 20, November 2, 2006
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TALENT: ACAUST AVM John Quaife presents Mrs Beryl Wells with an Air Force plaque for passing on the pencil sketches of life on RAAF Base Richmond drawn by her late husband Bill Wells.
Photo by AB Scott Partridge |
By FLTLT Eamon Hamilton
PAGES of history were turned over at the Defence Force Air Show, signifying the strong link between the Air Force and the local Hawkesbury community.
Sketchbooks belonging to the late William ‘Bill’ Wells were handed over to a grateful recipient, Air Commander Australia AVM John Quaife. Bill died in December last year. His wife Beryl and local mayor Rex Stubbs handed over the sketchbooks containing 14 years of drawings depicting life at RAAF Base Richmond.
AVM Quaife said he intended to work with Hawkesbury City Council in preserving the images properly and then displaying them around the base.
“We do need to do something to ensure they’re taken care of,” AVM Quaife said.
He was clearly impressed by the quality of Bill’s work, which records life on base between 1991 and 2005.
While many aviation artists focus their works on aircraft in flight, the majority of Bill’s sketches are more grounded in their nature – featuring scenes of Hercules and B707s undergoing maintenance inside hangars and on the Richmond flightline.
Bill’s other sketches focused on more historic subject matter, including the restoration of a De Havilland Mosquito and a Lockheed Ventura.
GPCAPT Dave Richardson, a former commanding officer of 486SQN, was present at the sketchbook handover to AVM Quaife.
Many of Bill’s sketches were taken in the 486SQN maintenance hangars at Richmond, and GPCAPT Richardson recalled the local artist and friend wanting to “draw the aircraft on the ground, when they were being worked on”.
GPCAPT Richardson said Bill would sit out of the way of aircraft maintainers, precisely recording not just the aircraft, but the individual appearance of many airmen.
“He would settle down in the middle of the hangar and capture what we did,” GPCAPT Richardson said.
Bill’s prominence on base during those 14 years led him to being granted an honorary membership with 486SQN, and later 37SQN.
In the Army during the WWII, Bill took up the pencil after his wartime service and completed a five-year art training course at East Sydney Technical College in 1953.
Bill then worked for 16 years as an art director with the Channel 7 television network. Retiring in 1977, he became a renowned figure within the Hawkesbury art community and sold artworks to Pathfinders, a group of Qantas pilots who support the Royal Institute for Deaf and Blind Children.
Another beneficiary of Bill’s artwork has been Hawkesbury City Council, which has three of his paintings – two depicting Hercules from RAAF Base Richmond – hanging in its Mayoral Office.
Hawkesbury Mayor Rex Stubbs said: “His artworks, sketches and drawings are a great asset to our community, and it is a great honour to be involved in handing over these sketches to the Air Force for safekeeping”.
