THE artist of the "mystery" oil painting Jungle Patrol that hangs in the Cronulla RSL Club lobby was reunited with her work last week, 50 years after it launched her art career.
The oil painting was rediscovered earlier this year in a storeroom at the club.
A small brass plaque on the picture frame said the artist was Helena Gibson and the painting had won first prize in the Cronulla RSL Memorial Club's 50th anniversary of Anzac art competition in 1964.
Its discovery launched a search that went to country Victoria and ended in Townsville.
Ms Gibson returned to Cronulla RSL last week to see her work again.
Cronulla RSL Sub-branch memorabilia curator Stan Grimshaw and assistant curator Colin Lock found the painting and were determined to learn more about its creator.
After a story appeared in the Leader in February appealing for information, Mr Grimshaw was contacted by someone who said the artist had moved to Victoria many years ago.
They made an internet search and found a Helena Gibson, a puppeteer.
Mistakenly thinking it wasn't her, they moved on and kept searching.
Many people contacted the club including an old friend of Ms Gibson from primary school and even her former Sunday school teacher.
Finally, someone said Ms Gibson had a cousin in Townsville and tracked them down.
"I was in the outback and not able to be contacted," Ms Gibson said.
"When I finally arrived in Townsville my cousin said that everyone was looking for me."
She was reunited with her work at the club last Friday, travelling from her home in country Victoria where she teaches art and puppetry at the indigenous Gallery Kaiela in Shepparton.
Ms Gibson entered the painting in the Cronulla RSL Club's Anzac Jubilee art competition when she was 18, winning ahead of 600 entries.
She was delighted that the painting was still in existence.
"I was excited that they wanted to know more about it, that they didn't just think it was dribbles and daubs but were willing to take another look at it," she said.
But there is another mystery about the painting which will remain unsolved.
Ms Gibson painted Jungle Patrol in abstract, depicting a jungle scene which on closer inspection shows several camouflaged soldiers embedded in the detail.
After it was hung in the memorabilia cabinet in the club's new foyer, many members tried to count how many soldiers are camouflaged in the detail of the painting.
It's a question that Ms Gibson could not say.
"I couldn't tell you how many soldiers are in the painting because I don't think the soldiers themselves would know.
"I knew it was very different in style when I did it.
"I thought, how could I get into the skin of the soldiers?"