Background
Norman Lindsay was born on 22 February 1879, in Creswick in the Victorian goldfields, and died at Springwood, NSW at the age of ninety on 21 November, 1969. His family’s artistic talent came from his mother, a daughter of the Rev. Thomas Williams who, as well as having been a pioneer Methodist missionary in Fiji, had a considerable skill in drawing and an interest in art that prompted him to take the young Norman Lindsay to the Ballarat Art Gallery, and, as Lindsay recalled in his autobiography My Mask, to introduce him to the painting of the figure in Solomon J. Solomon’s Ajax and Cassandra.
Of the 10 children of Dr and Mrs Lindsay, five were to become artists of distinction. Besides Norman there was Percy, the eldest, who painted sensitive landscapes in oils; Lionel, who is especially noted for his etchings and woodcuts; Ruby, who married the artist Will Dyson and drew under the name of Ruby Lind and Daryl who, besides making his own reputation as a painter, was for many years director of the National Gallery of Victoria.
Norman was unquestionably the outstanding member of this talented family. He began drawing in early childhood and throughout his newspaper for more than 50 years, his depictions of the current issues of the day illustrated Australia’s changing social attitudes. Controversy surrounded him as he defended his right to paint the nude – a subject hardly unusual in European art. Lindsay rejected Christianity, and his art depicts Bohemianism and Arcadian pantheism mixed in a fantasy world. As early as 1904 his work was deemed blasphemous; in 1930 his novel was banned, and the following year the police stopped an issue of magazine that showcased his art.
