Conroy Maddox rejected academic styles and his paintings, photographs and collages challenge the conventional view of reality.The Boy was one of a set of drawings Maddox produced for a book of prose poems by Stefan Schimanski of 1942. The drawing depicts a large, grotesque figure looming out of the ground. Its extended right arm divides in two to reveal a second figure that sits on a tree-stump looking dejected. Like many of the images in the publication, this drawing conveys an apocalyptic mood that echoes the unsettling period of war.