Melbourne-born artist Sidney Nolan established his reputation through several series of paintings depicting iconic Australians, including bushranger Ned Kelly and shipwreck survivor Eliza Fraser – both, in some ways, outsiders. Mrs Fraser was perhaps an unexpected choice yet reflects both Nolan’s sense of himself as an outcast and the relationship he shared with his onetime lover Sunday Reed.

Nolan left Sunday and her husband John’s creative enclave ‘Heide’, near Melbourne, in July 1947, journeying to Brisbane to escape their entangled domestic situation. In Brisbane, conversations with librarian and poet Barrett Reid encouraged Nolan to explore Mrs Fraser’s 1836 stranding off K’gari (known as Fraser Island from 1847 to 2023). He made trips to K’gari and visited the State Library of Queensland, where he poured over tales of Fraser’s marooning, time spent with Traditional Owners the Badtjala people, and her rescue by convict John Graham. In October 1947, Nolan made an initial series of twelve paintings on K’gari, including this one, and showed the artworks in his first commercial gallery exhibition, at Brisbane’s Moreton Galleries, the following year.