Edwin Galea has just made the final brushstroke to a painting which has taken him weeks of historical research. It needed to be a picture of perfection – as it will be gracing the walls of the San Diego museum, one of the largest maritime museums in the United States.
My wife has been looking forward to my retirement so we can go for strolls and coffee, but I think that’s still a long way off
As an official US Navy artist, Mr Galea, 79, was commissioned to depict on canvas two Swift boats in action in Grand Harbour.
“The idea was to mark the original US crafts which until three years ago used to patrol our harbour,” Mr Galea said.
The Swifts were donated by the US government in 1971, after a spell as combat boats during the Vietnam war. Back then Mr Galea, already an established marine artist, struck up a friendship with the US Navy commander here in Malta to train the crew and as a result he was given access to take photos of the boat for his painting records.
The two boats, based in Hay Wharf, were decommissioned in 2010. “But they were the only Swift boats still functioning in the world, so the San Diego Museum authorities asked if they could use one of them as part of their maritime exhibition,” Mr Galea said.
Following a handover ceremony last July, the Swift boat P24 was shipped to the US, where it is undergoing a total refit and then it will be opened to the public.
“The Museum will be exhibiting it in water, at the San Diego bay in May,” said Mr Galea.
This is not the first time Mr Galea’s paintings have been on show outside Malta. He has exhibited in main cities in Europe and the US and his work is found in the private collections of UK’s Prince Philip, former US President George Bush, former President Mikhail Gorbachev, former US Secretary of State James Baker, and former Soviet Minister of Foreign Affairs Edward Shevardnaze.
Mr Galea, from Valletta, was practically born with a paintbrush in his hand. His father Joseph had been tutored by renowned artist Edward Caruana Dingli and set up the Galea gallery before World War II.
“My father was the official war artist,” Mr Galea said. At the time, each of his paintings had to go through censorship for security reasons before it could be sold. As a child Mr Galea used to go and help his father sketch the Grand Harbour under attack. During the war, the Galea gallery was bombed out.
His most memorable experience was possibly when he was commissioned by the Maltese Government to record the Bush-Gorbachev summit in 1989, on board the Soviet SS Maxim Gorkiy, anchored off the coast of Marsaxlokk.
“I had prepared the bulk of the work, but the weather kept changing,” he said of one of the worst storms ever to hit the island. “While I was working on it, I kept getting calls from people to tell me that it was just getting worse and worse, but I managed to present it to the presidents on time,” he said.
Today, on the eve of his 80th birthday, painting is still Mr Galea’s passion and, three mornings a week, he makes it a point to go to work at his gallery in Valletta. “My wife has been looking forward to my retirement so we can go for strolls and coffee, but I think that’s still a long way off,” he quipped.