Attributes: Signed on the lower right. Attributed to Donald Friend - Media: Ink on paper - Condition: Good condition - Provenance: Private collection, South America - Dimensions (cm): 24 by 16.5 - Dimensions (inches): 9 1/2 by 6 1/2 - Biography:Donald Stuart Leslie Friend (1915-1989), artist and writer, was born on 6 February 1915 at Cremorne, Sydney, second of four children of Sydney-born parents Leslie William Moses, grazier, and his wife Gwendolyn Emily, née Lawson. His maternal grandfather was James Lawson. After a family quarrel in about 1920, Leslie Moses, with his brother Henry and their families, reverted to their mother’s maiden name of Friend. Donald attended Tudor House, Moss Vale, Cranbrook School, Sydney, and Sydney Grammar School, studied art with Sydney Long, and learned etching. On leaving school in 1931, he worked on the family property Glendon, near Warialda. With his mother’s clandestine support he ran away from home in 1932 and travelled north to Queensland and Torres Strait. When he returned to Sydney in 1934, he attended Antonio Dattilo-Rubbo’s classes.In 1936 Friend went to London and enrolled at the Westminster School of Art under Mark Gertler and Bernard Meninsky. His drawings were shown in a group (1937) and a one-man (1938) exhibition at R. E. A. Wilson’s Gallery. In London Friend was impressed by the paintings of Paul Gauguin, Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, El Greco and Hieronymus Bosch. Enjoying the African nightclubs, he fell in love with Ladipo, a Nigerian man from Ikerre, and in 1938 travelled to Nigeria, where, next year, he became an adviser to the Ogoga (leader) in Ikerre. Friend sought to understand Nigerian life and attempted to make sculpture with the casters’ guild, using their methods of `lost wax’ bronze casting.On his return to Sydney in 1940 Friend mixed with the artists (Sir) Russell Drysdale and (Sir) William Dobell, and exhibited at the Macquarie Galleries and with the Society of Artists, Sydney. Enlisting in the Australian Imperial Force on 29 June 1942 as a gunner, he volunteered to be a guinea pig in experiments carried out in North Queensland in 1943 to test the efficacy of anti-malarial drugs. In March 1945 he was commissioned as a lieutenant and appointed a war artist. From May to September he served on Morotai and in Borneo. Back in Australia, he relinquished his appointment in March 1946. Many dramatic works—including evocative depictions of the Japanese dead—resulted from his official commission. His war diaries were published as Gunner’s Diary (1943) and Painter’s Journal (1946). He had painted his first import­ant works in Brisbane—dark, powerful images of human figures in the landscape.

Good Condition