Search For Artist Of Desert Mural

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31023, 31 March 1966, Page 7

Search For Artist Of Desert Mural

"Th* Fr«»«" Special Service AUCKLAND March 30.

An Aucklander is trying to find relatives or friends of an Allied prisoner-of-war who painted a mural on the wall of a building in a village in Bardia, Libya, during the North African campaign of the Second World War. Mr E. M. Collier, of Buckland’s Beach, took photographs of the mural while he was in North Africa four years ago. He spent two years in Libya as a civil engineer reconstructing the Royal Air Force station at El Adem, just out of Tobruk. He was shown the mural by R.A.F. officers who took him to visit the deserted village, once occupied by the Italians but now only visited seasonally by Arab nomads. Mr Collier said the mural, which was 18 feet long and 10 feet high, was painted on an interior wall and had, he thought, a typically New Zealand flavour.

“It included drawings of beer, horse racing and girls,” he said, “just the sort of thing a captured New Zealand soldier might be expected to be pining for.”

The mural also contains a boxer, newspaper headlines, a couple of ’cellos, a piano keyboard, ballerinas and a pile of human skulls. Painted

in black boot polish, it is signed W. J. Brill.

Mr Collier said British airmen at El Adem claimed the artist was a New Zealander.

He took his photographs to the Returned Services Association which looked up the artist’s name at the War Records Office, Wellington. But the records do not include the name of a New Zealand serviceman called W. J. Brill.

Mr Collier said it was rumoured that the artist was killed when he rejoined his regiment after being released. “But I think he may have been an Australian,” he said, “and I would like to get in touch with his family or friends or anybody who knows anything about the mural.”