Dog Fight

"Friend returned to Australia from Europe in October 1953 and settled at Hill End. However, depressed by domestic affairs he decided in the following year to go to Queensland...He motored to Brisbane with David Strachan, arriving on 19 June, and stayed with Margaret Olley. He and Olley travelled to various towns and at the end of June he was given a newspaper commission to make drawings of North Queensland." (B Pearce, Donald Friend, Sydney.1990.p.82) The hotel depicted here is reminiscent of so many of the pubs in the towns between Townsville and Cairns and out to the western township of Charters Towers. The palette Friend has used in Dog Fight is similar to that used in The Schooner Miena Refitting at Townsville 1954 (in the collection of the AGNSW). It is in this region that the earth is a dry dusty red and the sky takes on a definite brilliance, quite different from the lushness and green tones of far north Queensland.