Waddell has a Capitol time

By LINDA HERRICK

Terrorist attacks on the Pentagon, a serial sniper killer, one of the worst crime rates in the United States: why would anyone want to live in Washington, DC? New Zealand artist Peter Waddell, for one. Waddell, who has built up a specialty in historic paintings, has been there for eight years and reckons "life is sweet" in his adopted home.

Waddell is artist-in-residence at the plush Tudor Place Historic House and Gardens in Georgetown, Washington. He has made a nice living out of substantial institutional and private commissions in the nation's capital.

And Inside the Temple of Liberty: 19th Century Interiors, his major, 20-work survey of the interiors of the city's distinctively domed Capitol, has been extended further at the American Architectural Foundation's Octagon Museum.

Negotiations are also under way to have Inside the Temple of Liberty tour other centres in the US before being permanently settled in a museum in the new underground visitors' centre at the Capitol.

"This exhibition opened in June and people have really liked it," says Waddell, a former Aucklander who has been back in New Zealand briefly to visit family. "I have been described as a national treasure, which is very funny, but I have got a niche there.

"In the United States there has been a great increase in interest in history after going through a period when there was no interest at all. We believed everything was new and bore no relationship to anything that had happened before."

Waddell spent two years researching the Capitol interiors and history, focusing on the period 1812-1875, with the help of the building's architectural historian William Allen, Senate curator Diane Skvarla and Architect of the Capitol curator Barbara Wolanin, who together allowed him unprecedented access to material and rooms long-closed to the public.

"I had been painting a lot of historic things and interiors and I realised no one else had painted interiors of the Capitol," explains Waddell. "Few people had even photographed them in a serious way. So I wrote a proposal to the Octagon Museum and they loved it, and wrote to the curators of the Capitol."

Waddell agrees it seems unusual, impertinent even, for an outsider to study an icon of American history. "I always start my lectures by saying I feel embarrassed to be lecturing Americans about American history - and then I give them little tests," he laughs.

"But, how well do we know our own history? When Jim Bolger was ambassador here, we were talking about what New Zealanders knew about their history and I said I didn't think most would be able to name the first prime minister." [Too right: it was Henry Sewell, who held the seat from May 7-20, 1856.]

Waddell says the fact a foreigner cares so deeply about American history is also a plus. "They love it. I don't think New Zealanders would feel that way if a foreigner came here and started doing it. But then that is the secret of the United States - it has attracted creative people from all over the world. It transfuses its culture constantly."

On his return to Washington a week ago, Waddell was to complete two large commissions, work towards a show with his dealer, the Anton Gallery, and, "I've got a big plan coming up but I can't say what it is yet. I don't want to give the idea away to someone else".

Waddell's Capitol exhibition has had saturation media coverage in Washington but a clipping from the September 8 issue of the Washington Post focuses on another function altogether.

Six generations of the Peters family lived at Tudor Place, from Martha Washington's granddaughter to Armistead Peter III, who died in 1983. Peter III's treasured car, a priceless 1919 Pierce-Arrow roadster, resides in the historic house's garage.

Waddell, as one of the few people taught to drive the 525 cubic-inch-engined, 6m-long beast, takes it on a run in the northern suburbs once a month, a double-clutching feat that calls for a tight grip on another piece of the city's history. He says passers-by always smile and wave. Waddell, it seems, has discovered a friendlier side to Washington, DC.