Despite his growing fame, in 1953 Scottish-born Ian Fairweather retreated from society to the rudimentary hut that he built on Bribie Island in Moreton Bay, where he was to produce his greatest works. Here he depicts a busload of passengers as morosely confined, perhaps even caged, behind strong vertical brushstrokes. The faces appear to project forward from the confining grid of dark lines that define the vehicle. Perhaps these work-bound people, peering out of the bus, are longing to recline on the beach and take in the quiet delights of Moreton Bay.

In a note dated 15 March 1965, Fairweather commented: ‘. . . the bus stop is part of the landscape as seen from the beach outside the grocery — over my daily bottle of milk’. One can imagine Fairweather drinking his milk, watching the procession of people boarding the bus to work or to the shops and, perhaps, thinking that he had, at least, escaped this particular monotonous daily routine by choosing the life of a reclusive painter.