Following service in World War Two, Jon Molvig studied at the East Sydney Technical College before travelling through Europe during 1949–52. There, he encountered artworks by expressionists such as Edvard Munch and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, later telling his friend Laurie Thomas (director of the Queensland Art Gallery, 1961–67), ‘I think [they were] the people who interested me most’. Having spent time in Brisbane in 1953, and being impressed by WG Grant’s expressive watercolours, Molvig settled permanently in the capital two years later. His infectious presence was soon felt by the city’s aspiring artists, who gravitated to the classes that he held in the basement of St Mary’s Anglican Church at Kangaroo Point.

In 1958, Molvig travelled to Central Australia, drawn to explore the region’s unique qualities. The artworks Molvig made in response to the trip would become known as his ‘Centralian’ series and were shown at the Johnstone Gallery, Brisbane, in 1959. A ballad of native stockmen no.2 1959 is one of four paintings Molvig based on the death of an Indigenous Australian stockman and captures the colours and scorching heat of the desert environment that inspired it.