Moody's pub

This work is one of Russell Drysdale’s most celebrated paintings and amongst the most frequently reproduced images of twentieth century Australian art. Based on the Royal Hotel at Seymour on the Hume Highway, the painting evokes Drysdale’s particular sense of humour in observing events from everyday life, and shows a group of laconic country men standing with hands on hips or dangling at their sides. As one of Drysdale’s earliest paintings of a street in an outback town, a subject that later became so typical in his work, and the first painting by the artist acquired by the National Gallery of Victoria, Moody’s pub rapidly achieved iconic status.

Text © National Gallery of Victoria, Australia