Donald Friend
(1915 - 1989) Australia
Painter, illustrator and writer
 Born Donald Stuart Leslie Moses in Sidney, and descended by paternal line from the Marquis of Queensbury (the father of Lord Douglas), the maternal maiden name, Friend, was adopted after a family quarrel in the 1920s. A highly prolific artist, he studied in Sidney before traveling to London in 1936, where he studied under Mark Gertler and Bernard Meninsky, who encouraged his lifelong interest in figure-drawing - the youthful male figure, especially, being a recurrent subject for Friend.
 
Leaving London in 1938, Friend settled in Nigeria until the outbreak of war forced him to return to Australia early in 1940. Friend enlisted in the Australian Army in 1942 and in 1945 was commissioned as an Official War Artist working in Borneo and New Guinea.
 
Following the war, Friend moved into "Merioola", a colonial mansion in the Sidney suburb of Woollahra, which became a focus for Sidney's bohemian and artistic homosexual subculture. Of great significance was the artistic partnership between Friend and the landscape painter Russell Drysdale in the late 1940s.
Source: excerpts from: Aldrich R. & Wotherspoon G., Who's Who in Contemporary Gay and Lesbian History, from WWII to Present Day, Routledge, London, 2001
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