Donald Friend: A Charmed Life
Donald Friend (1915-1989) was one of Australia’s most prolific and inventive artists. His achievements as a draughtsman, painter, sculptor, author, illustrator and diarist are celebrated in this wide-ranging exhibition, curated for the National Library by publisher and art-historian Lou Klepac. After growing up in Sydney Friend travelled extensively throughout his life to a variety of ‘exotic’ locations, such as Nigeria, the Torres Strait, Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and Bali, as well as to Europe. He lived in many of these places for extended periods, producing a variety of the works on show in this exhibition (other works were produced during his periods of residence in Australia). Friend enlisted as a gunner during World War 2 and, stationed in Albury in 1942, he met and befriended the Australian artist Russell Drysdale. Two of Drysdale’s important paintings are included in the exhibition along with selections from Friend’s depictions of wartime Brisbane and Melbourne. Friend’s output during his relatively short period as an official war artist is also represented.
Friend wrote three diaries as an adolescent. He began to write diaries again as a 27-year-old after enlisting in the army and the National Library holds 44 of Friend’s 46 extant diaries. Friend wanted his diaries to be published and, with the release of volume four of The Diaries of Donald Friend in 2006, a publishing project commenced in 2000 is now complete. The diaries are a wide-ranging written record of Friend’s life and opinions and contain numerous letters, semi-fictional episodes and reflections. They are enhanced by scores of delightful drawings and, overall, are perhaps the most important diaries written by an Australian in the twentieth century.
Containing over 150 items, with many public and private loans, and including all 44 of Friend’s
diaries from the Library’s collection, Donald Friend: A Charmed Life is one of the most ambitious
exhibitions ever dedicated to the life and work of this important artist.



