Sofala

Whilst Donald Friend was staying with Russell Drysdale's family in Sydney in 1947 he read in a magazine article about the old forgotten gold-mining towns of Hill End and Sofala in western New South Wales. Prompted to discover new motifs for painting, the two artists set out to explore the landscape behind Bathurst. But it was a response to Hill End and Sofala which provided the momentous experience of their journey. Hereafter Hill End especially became a destination of succeeding generations of artists. Friend purchased a house there, a retreat for him and others for many years after.

In nearby Sofala on that first visit in 1947, both artists made sketches of the main street, and began working on their respective paintings of the same subject soon after returning to Sydney. Drysdale augmented his impression of the architecture by taking photographs. His version, which he painted that winter in his studio, was imbued with a timeless monumentality and melancholy palette which perhaps reflects a mind-set as much as optical truth. The painting was entered into that year's Wynne Prize for landscape at the Art Gallery of NSW and won the Prize in a triumphant break from the traditional pastoral canon.

The version by Friend is far more light-hearted, and he himself admitted that Drysdale's vision by comparison occupied a far grander, more solemn status, recording in his diary at the time: '... Tas in a frenzy of painting, unusual for him, worked on the final stages of his picture of Sofala's main street which he had been painting every day since last weekend. It is very good and makes my own picture ... look pretty foolish, shallow and flimsy ...'. Five years later the Gallery purchased it, destined to become one of the modern icons of the Australian collection.

Australian Art Department, AGNSW, 2008