Donald Stuart Leslie Friend (1915-1989) was an Australian artist and diarist who lived much of his life outside his native land. Stints in the UK, Nigeria, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, and Italy added cultural depth to his work. Friend didn't go out of his way to hide his own homosexuality in either his art or his writings, but the real bombshell came when his personal journals were published posthumously. He described himself as "a middle aged pederast who's going to seed." While I absolutely disapprove of pedophilia, the artistic merit of Friend's work is considerable and it regularly appears in museums and galleries. We start our Friday art series with his "Studies of a Male Nude" from 1952.
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