Collection Online

Moody's pub
(1941)

Medium
oil on plywood

Measurements
50.9 × 61.4 cm

Credit Line
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Purchased, 1942
© Courtesy Russell Drysdale Estate

Gallery location
Not on display

 

About this work

Moody’s pub is one of Russell Drysdale’s most celebrated paintings and among the most frequently reproduced images of twentieth-century Australian art. Based on the Royal Hotel on the Hume Highway at Seymour, the painting evokes Drysdale’s particular sense of humour in its observation of events from everyday life. A group of laconic country men are shown standing with hands on hips or dangling at their sides. As one of Drysdale’s earliest paintings of a street in an outback town, and the first painting by the artist acquired by the National Gallery of Victoria, Moody’s pub rapidly achieved iconic status.

Artwork Details

Place/s of Execution
Vaucluse, Sydney, New South Wales

Inscription
inscribed in black paint l.r.: Russell Drysdale

Accession Number
1147-4

Department
Australian Painting

This digital record has been made available on NGV Collection Online through the generous support of The Vizard Foundation