Push to repair Warrnambool's once-controversial neglected street art

A tourist who came to see the sculpture was so "horrified" by its condition he cleaned it himself and has twice written to the council about it, but with no response.

Alf Cantrell, who runs a Banjo Patterson museum in New South Wales, made a point of visiting The Three Pillars of Instant Gratification sculpture on the corner of Liebig Street and Koroit Street but found it covered in a white substance and Band-Aids. "I was absolutely horrified when I saw it," he said. "The manner this treasured sculpture is being treated is a disgrace," he wrote in a letter to the council.

"It's filthy, has some sort of liquid spilt on it, has dirty Band-aids on its fingers and parts of it worked loose by too many assaults or vandalism - not to mention the chipped, cracked and crumbling plinth on which it stands." He called for it to be immediately cleaned and repaired as a matter of urgency.

Mr Cantrell said people stopped to talk to him while he was washing the sculpture. "Some people said they didn't like it when it first came here but it wasn't too bad now," she said. "Things grow on people.

"That being his first sculpture, it's going to be a national treasure one day."

The sculpture was erected in 2010 by Ewen Coates - the first acquisition under the council's program of investing in public art for the city.

Coates said it was nice that someone cared enough to write a letter to the council about taking care of it.

"It was pretty controversial when it was commissioned. There was a lot of backlash in the community," he said.

"It had been a week in the ground and someone had stole the hand and they found it down at a toilet block at Lake Pertobe."

That act of vandalism, he said, almost reversed public sentiment.

Coates said he hadn't been to see the sculpture for some time, but was aware it needed work after he was contacted by someone from the council before the major revamp of Liebig Street seeking a quote to replace the plinth with a bronze version.

He estimated that work could now cost up to $20,000.

"That base, which was made in cement fondue, was a test as to whether it would last the distance being in a public space," he said.

Coates, who studied fine arts in Warrnambool, said the plinth was part of the sculpture and represented a tree trunk, but over the years weather had taken its toll.

The sculpture was installed as a commissioned prize valued at $20,000.

"It's nice to have that located in a public area, but it probably cost me almost that to make it. It wasn't ever a money-making exercise," Coates said.

It's now worth as much as $50,000, and his other sculptures at the war memorial entrance in Canberra had almost doubled in value as well, he said.

Mr Cantrell's interest in the city's sculpture came after he commissioned Coates to cast an "absolutely magnificent" $130,000 statue of Australian poet Banjo Patterson out the front of his museum.

"Ewen's name came up from several sources as probably being the best in Australia," he said.

Warrnambool's link with Banjo Patterson dates back to 1894 when Christine Macpherson heard a Scottish tune played at the races, and later played her version of it for the poet which became the inspiration for Australia's unofficial anthem Waltzing Matilda.

The council said it had no plans at this stage to upgrade the sculpture by replacing the plinth and CBD staff would use a pressure cleaner on it on a regular basis.

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