Melbourne-born Roy Dalgarno attended drawing lessons at the National Gallery School (1926–30). He undertook further study in Sydney with Antonio Dattilo-Rubbo (1930–33) and at the East Sydney Technical College (1932–34). After returning to Melbourne, where he joined the Australian Communist Party, Dalgarno journeyed north. In Brisbane, he worked briefly as art director at advertising agency Johnston & Jones, and exhibited drawings of the Story Bridge under construction with the Royal Queensland Art Society (RQAS) in 1937 and 1939.

Dalgarno formed a friendship with RQAS president Dr JV (James Vincent) Duhig, and it may have been with Duhig’s encouragement that Dalgarno travelled to North Queensland to portray the region’s sugarcane workers and fishermen. He started painting in earnest during this period and spent six months on Bedarra Island with fellow painter Noel Wood, preparing work for their exhibition in Brisbane. Organised by John Cooper and opened by Duhig at the Princes Ballroom in the Courier Building on Queen Street, the exhibition was acclaimed, with the Cairns Post reviewer noting Dalgarno’s ‘remarkable skill in capturing the hard, glaring lights of the tropics’.