Diggers on leave

Accession Number ART27775.004
Collection type Art
Measurement Overall: 119 x 255 cm
Object type Work on paper
Physical description oil on sisalkraft (oil-backed paper)
Maker McLaren, Gus
Date made c.1945
Conflict Second World War, 1939-1945
Copyright

Item copyright: Unlicensed copyright

Description

A four-panel mural painting for the 2/9th Australian General Hospital recreational hut for the amusement of the patients. This final panel, painted while McLaren was still posted in the Morotai, depicts a fantasy of time on leave using landmarks in Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne. A digger stands at Flinders Street Station (Melbourne) glancing at his watch. A Smith Street tram (Brisbane) is depicted in outline while another soldier is apprehended by two MPs, too drunk to hold himself upright. In the centre is McLaren himself (his service number and partial name on the duffle bag at his feet) greeting his sweetheart. In the foreground is a small park scene with two soldiers ogling two girls sitting on the grass; a soldier simulates fighting the enemy to his sweetheart's family while she sits disinterestedly gazing off into the distance; while a soldier and brunette rip up the dance floor to a swing band.

Drawing and painting materials were scarce during the Second World War, so McLaren adopted the tar-backed paper (sisalkraft) that was used throughout the Solomon Islands for lining the thatched huts. At the end of the war, the murals were brought back to Australia by a member of the 2/9th A.G.H. and were installed in Red Cross House library in the N.S.W. division headquarters of the ARCS. In the early 1970s, the building was due to be demolished and the mural was salvaged once again to find a permanent home in the collection of the Australian War Memorial.