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Donald Friend

The work of Donald Friend had a significant bearing on the early artistic directions of the Johnstone Gallery. Friend, his colleague Margaret Olley and Arthur Boyd were notable inclusions in Brian Johnstone's early artistic forays with Marodian Gallery. In September 1951, Johnstone's gallery partner Hugh Hale described work by Boyd and Friend as "rubbish", an incident that triggered the dissolution of the partnership and led to the establishment of the Johnstone Gallery in the Brisbane Arcade.

Earthquake Torres Strait

The Billygoat Bushrangers

Leeches for Literature

Nevertheless, early correspondence with Donald Friend confirms that his work found a ready market from its first showing at the Marodian. Brian Johnstone wrote:

Further to our letter dated 26th June, we wish to advise the receipt of your parcel the contents of which have given us great pleasure. We had hardly opened it actually when Robert Haines [director, Queensland Art Gallery, 1951-1960] dropped in and promptly disappeared with four which we haven't seen since!

To date we have sold three (two of them to one buyer who will be able to afford to pay for them in September) with another 3 sales in the immediate offing. ? Regarding your show of oils, we have kept the period 24 September - 5 October free. We hope you will be able to manage a show by that date. Great interest is already being displayed here at the prospect of seeing a full show of your work as we hope you will be able to make it.

(Letter from Brian Johnstone to Donald Friend, 31 July 1951:The Johnstone Gallery Archive: Donald Friend Early Correspondence File: RBHARC 7/3/38).

Brian's initial introduction to Donald Friend at his Hill End, NSW base may have taken place under Olley's auspices. In a letter addressed to "Mr Johnstone" dated 19 June 1951, Friend wrote:

Thank you very much for your letter which I have just received as I'd been away for a few weeks. I'd already heard a lot of good things about your Gallery from Margaret Olley, Jean Bellette & others & was going to get in touch with you when I had enough work on hand. I will send you a batch of work soon - not enough for a show but at least enough for occasional mixed shows etc, & by September should be able to send enough for a show. You'll see what sort of work I am doing by the parcel I'll send off in a few days, & let me know how many would be required for a one-man show.

(Letter from Donald Friend to Brian Johnstone, 19 June 1951:The Johnstone Gallery Archive: Donald Friend Early Correspondence File: RBHARC 7/3/38)

This first solo exhibition opened on September 24, 1951. Friend, who returned to Australia after September 1950, departed Australia again early in 1952, apparently cheered by the success of his Brisbane exhibition (from which the Queensland Art Gallery acquired two works), and another in Sydney.

Friend's flair for diarising and letter writing is widely known. His correspondence with Brian Johnstone was witty, informed and ascerbic, and gives hilarious insights into his relationships with other galleries. Of his exhibition at Macquarie Galleries, Sydney between November 24 and December 6, 1954, Friend wrote:

The Sydney show went off astonishingly well, tho' the Vestals of Bligh Street at first seemed madly cold toward me, & one felt that the sales were a sort of vulgar accident to which they only warmed when the shower of gold became an avalanche. They had taken utterly no interest nor care in the framing which was abysmal ? One picture that I had sent was banned altogether, on Moral Grounds. La Swanton icily said, "No, I felt it was not Us - certain things you know. There just might be Unpleasantness. Perhaps it would do for those Brisbane people you show with ?"

I answered: "I quite see your point. Yes, it is rather special. Actually, I had thought of it for the Johnstone Gallery but it is not modern enough for their Brisbane clients. I'll keep it for the Sydney Group, which after all sets a standard which all the smaller galleries follow in the long run?" We then smiled very sweetly at one another. She was furious.

(Letter from Donald Friend to Brian Johnstone, 22 December 1954: The Johnstone Gallery Archive: Donald Friend Early Correspondence File: RBHARC 7/3/38)

Equally, Brian Johnstone confided in Friend, writing in April 1953:

I have been most heartened by the way the Gallery is progressing. Slowly but surely the better work is beginning to sell although, after my Sydney trip at Xmas time, I was not a little saddened at the prospect of trying to maintain a standard. Such a lot of hum-drum stuff and even the bigger "names" seem to just go painting the same old things with very little object in view other than to turn out yet another painting. What is even more depressing is the almost complete lack of any new talent.

(Letter from Brian Johnstone to Donald Friend, 27 April 1953: The Johnstone Gallery Archive: Donald Friend Early Correspondence File: RBHARC 7/3/38)

Unidentified painting

Earthquake Torres Strait

Serenading the Maestro

The Johnstones selected Donald Friend's work to open a Studio gallery at their Cintra Road home, which would offer "an extension of city hours to include weekends" (The Johnstone Gallery Archive: Scrapbook 1954-1955: RBHARC 7/1/2, p.1). "At home and abroad by Donald Friend" was shown between 24 August and 6 September, 1954. Like Margaret Olley, Friend became a member of the gallery family. When the Old Vienna (the restaurant adjoining the Brisbane Arcade gallery) required repainting but the proprietor Magda Vollner couldn't afford professional tradesmen, Brian suggested that she simply buy the paint. The following week, Friend and Olley painted the Old Vienna's walls. The quid pro quo was dinner and drinks.

1955 was a good year for Friend, as he reflected in a letter to Brian:

Thanks for your letter & the beautiful cheque. This is obviously my year, everything goes so well. The Blake as you can imagine, both the Prize & the Darnell Purchase, gave me the greatest thrill.

(Letter from Donald Friend to Brian Johnstone, 31 March 1955: The Johnstone Gallery Archive: Donald Friend Early Correspondence File: RBHARC 7/3/38)

After Brian's illness brought the Brisbane Arcade gallery to an end in December 1957, Donald Friend expressed his pleasure at the re-entry of the Johnstone Gallery into the marketplace when Brian and Marjorie reopened at Cintra Road in 1958:

It was a joy to hear from you - my reply delayed by several things - I wanted to finish several drawings & send you the whole lot in one parcel, which was finally done up this morning? So glad to hear the Gallery is being such a success - you both certainly deserve it, & have had to fight for it for a long time.

(Letter from Donald Friend to Brian Johnstone, 2 January 1959:The Johnstone Gallery Archive: Donald Friend Early Correspondence File: RBHARC 7/3/38)

Sidney Baillieu Myer was an associate of the Johnstone Gallery whose interests in the art of this period yielded commissions for Donald Friend, Ray Crooke and Charles Blackman. The first of these was Baillieu Myer's commission to Donald Friend to do a series of paintings of his property, Yulgilbar Castle, a colonial house on the Clarence River near Grafton in New South Wales, which Friend had visited in October 1962. These works were shown at the Johnstone Gallery from 13 to 28 August, 1963.

Friend's correspondence also illustrates the inevitable tensions that exist between artist and dealer, evident in his letter to Brian of July 1963:

...dear boy for Christ's sake go ahead with the catalogue & don't, don't don't please please ask for more pictures all the time. I told you I'd send any if any came up. I told you dozens of times. And you did get extras (which belonged in other Gallery's shows).

(Letter from Donald Friend to Brian Johnstone, 15 July 1963, The Johnstone Gallery Archive: Donald Friend Correspondence File: RBHARC 7/3/39)

In this letter he also mentions that he has cancelled shows in Perth and Adelaide due to the rigours of the Yulgilbar show.

Donald Friend's last solo exhibition at the Johnstone Gallery took place between 26 July and 10 August, 1966 and was titled "Barbaric Variations on the Masters".