WHEN a visiting artist asked Carlton Wilkinson and his sister Millicent to pose for a portrait she was painting of their North Hamilton neighbourhood, they assumed they'd at least see the finished product.

However, it wasn't until the Masterworks Foundation launched a public appeal through this newspaper last week - nearly 60 years later - that the two were finally able to glimpse what Dorothy Stevens had captured on canvas.

"I'd been looking for that picture for years," Mr. Wilkinson said yesterday. "I knew it existed and I was connected to it. I remember telling Lawson Mapp (Hamilton Mayor) about it 20 years ago and I also talked about it with the late (Progressive Labour Party MP) Jimmy Williams because he was from that area also.

"But I was never able to find it. It bothered me. I didn't know whether the painting had left Bermuda or destroyed even. I had a huge shock when I saw it on the front of the Mid-Ocean News."

Masterworks asked for the public's help in identifying the artist's rendering of an area it knew only to be somewhere in the "back of town". The response, said Tom Butterfield, the charity's head, was astounding.

"We had so many people call in," he said. "People even called me at home over the weekend to tell me they recognised the painting and to explain what it was like growing up in the neighbourhood. It (really showed) the richness of their childhood which was unlike so many of ours in Bermuda because of the tight framework that existed in the community."

Not much is known of the artist, Ms Stevens, except that she was Canadian, she visited the island some ime during the 1940s, and captured one of the few images that exist on canvas, of that part of Bermuda.

Her painting was gifted to Masterworks recently, and the appeal subsequently launched. Depicted in the painting is the Old Samaritans Lodge which once housed the Berkeley Insititute; Parker's Hill, which has since been transformed into Gosling's parking lot and part of its warehouse and New Street, now Elliott Street, was the last public road to be paved on the island.

Mr. Wilkinson said he and his sister just happened upon Ms Stevens while visiting their aunt, who lived not more than 100 yards from the area depicted. The artist actually included two of him in the painting, once standing with his sister and again sitting on a pile of rocks.

"I remember posing for the artist," Mr. Wilkinson said. "I would think it would have been some time before 1948 because we moved out of the neighbourhood that year. It was probably during 1946 or 1947. All I knew about her was that she was Canadian. We were just hanging around and she asked if we'd mind posing for her.

"What's especially interesting is that it's not the typical picture that a visiting tourist would want to paint. Why she chose the back of town we don't know, but there's not much history captured on canvas of that particular area which makes it even more important to the people who lived there."

Although born after the painting was made, Robert Simmons identified the neighbourhood just as easily.

"As soon as I saw the painting I knew it could only be one place. I was born on Elliott Street between Princess and Court Street and know the area quite well. The hill in the painting, on the right side, is called Parker's Hill. Part of it is now the parking lot behind Gosling's and part of the new Gosling's warehouse.

"That part of the road was never called Elliott Street. It was called the New Road. And the building in the painting used to belong to a lodge, downstairs of which was a school, Galleon's School. The building on the left, where the children are playing is possibly the funeral parlour on Elliott Street before it was renovated."

For Gladwin Bean, who lived in the neighbourhood until he was a teenager, the painting brought together a diverse community.

"I grew up on Parker's Hill and left the neighbourhood when I was about 14," he said. "But the houses, the streets, everything she painted, gives an accurate description of the neighbourhood as it was then.

"It was very surprising to see and shows the good work that Masterworks Foundation is doing. To see how a painting like that brought together 20 people from the same neighbourhood today living completely separate lives is astonishing.

"There's Chris Furbert, vice-president of the Bermuda Industrial Union, Llewellyn Emery, author of popular children's book Ain't Nothin But Pond Dog, Annie Young Bean of True Reflections; we all lead such diverse lives and all move in our own circles. To have that picture pull us together, through Masterworks, is a great thing."

For Masterworks, the story couldn't have ended on a better note; not only was the picture identified but it brought a community together again as the charity joined them to have a picture taken at the site.

"It was truly a fabulous exerience for me. Some of (them) hadn't seen each other in years," Mr. Butterfield said. "One man came up to me and just couldn't stop saying 'thank you' to Masterworks for doing what (we) do. Many made the comment that perhaps Hamilton would look slightly different if we'd had given more thought to preserving what was once a neighbourhood."

Masterworks intends to present each of the former residents, and the Berkeley Institute, with a print of the painting.