Mr Christensen's business, Visual Art Reproductions,restored the two d'Arcy Doyle originals now adorning the stairs - flanking a portrait of Norm Provan - that lead to the Club's first floor. "They were in the cellar until about four weeks ago," Mr Christensen said of the highly recognisable works in October. "You ought to have seen the stains we had to get off them."
The original paintings capture the splendour of Sydney Harbour long before d'Arcy Doyle's authentic land and maritime scenes twigged Australia's collective imagination - around Australia's 1988 Bicentenary.
"The d'Arcy paintings were originally done as a backdrop to a bar, long before d'Arcy was an established artist," Leagues Club Assistant General Manager Michael Derrig told the Journal. "When the bar was refurbished, the panels containing the artwork were put into storage. Recently we had Paul restore and frame them with a view to selling them, but Paul and (Catering Manager) Marion Casey were both keen that we
should feature them in the club - their true home."
The late, great d'Arcy Doyle rose to prominence thanks mostly to his own genius but in part to the business acumen of Mr Christensen, a Leagues Club member for the past 25 years. The Sans Souci man helped put Australian art on the map as a promoter in the 1980s when he marketed vast numbers of prints of works by previously unheralded artists like d'Arcy Doyle and Fred McCubbin.
Fate led Mr Christensen into a lucrative business partnership - with Okko Boer - and he later employed St George players in a large factory on Rocky Point Road. "This became a booming business by the '80s as Aussies
started building homes," Mr Christensen told the Journal amid the clutter of about 700,000 prints at his Rockdale studio. "From starting small it ended up in a big factory doing between 2000 and 3000 prints a week. "In summer we would play handball out the front and women in cars would pull up because the footballers would take their shirts off," he laughed.
Mr Christensen said players like Michael Beattie and Brian Johnston proved excellent friends in testing times for his family. d'Arcy Doyle enjoyed a long association with St George Leagues Club, where he began his career painting backdrops. He died at age 69 in 2001 after spending his later years in the Gold Coast hinterland.
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St George Leagues Club
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