Funds needed to protect collection

The Warragul and District Historical Society will have to spend many thousands of dollars to restore and preserve its valuable collection of original paintings and photographs – otherwise they will be lost, the society was told last week.

The society’s treasurer, Aldo Bagnara, said it was imperative to gain federal grants to ensure the works are saved. He was giving his financial report to the society’s annual general meeting.

Aldo said the society’s most important possessions were the art work of Neville Cayley – original watercolours from the first settlement in Warragul in 1879.

The society has four Cayley paintings, one it believes is a Cayley work and a photograph of another Cayley Warragul painting.

“They (the originals) are conservatively valued at $15,000$20,000 each, but they are showing signs of degradation. The colours are fading and the paper is deteriorating. There are cracks in them. With proper preservation, conservation and restoration, they can be brought back to a good quality, stored for longer and in a very good condition.”

For example, acid could be removed from the paper, neutralside ising the acid impact and preserving the paper so it would not deteriorate.

Aldo said the society had got past the first step, obtaining $4000 from the National Library of Australia for an official historian to assess the Cayley works for their significance on a local, state and national basis.

“We got a good rating,” he said, but the next step was to investigate whether they needed preservation. “We need another $4000 for a conservator to assess whether they need conserving,” he said. We did not get a grant last year and are back this year with more ‘bells and whistles’.”

Aldo said if this was achieved, the society would have to ask for more money to do the actual conservation work, which was likely to cost $15,000-$20,000.

He would be more confident of gaining a grant from the National Library if the society itself could provide some money.

Aldo said this was why the society had a term deposit that was continually turned over. The deposit’s balance at June 30 was $10,091.15.

“The term deposit is our ‘nest egg’ for the preservation of the Cayleys,” he said, as well as works by C.H. Round whose watercolours were of early houses in Warragul.

“You can see in totality, you can see what the early country- was like,” he said. These works also had water, light and acid damage.

Aldo said the society also had a collection of more than 7000 photographs, many very old and on poor quality paper.

The photographers then did a great job, as many of the photos had a high resolution, better than photos of today. “We have to digitise them. We need funding for that,” he said. “If we don’t do it now, we will lose it.”