Lindsay. Family of Australian artists. The members included five of the children of Dr R. C. Lindsay of Creswick, Victoria:
Percy Lindsay (1870–1952), painter and graphic artist;
Sir Lionel Lindsay (1874–1961), art critic, watercolour painter, and graphic artist in pen, etching, and woodcut, who helped to create an interest in the collection of original prints in Australia;
Norman Lindsay (
b Creswick, 23 Feb. 1879;
d Sydney, 21 Nov. 1969), painter, graphic artist, critic, and novelist;
Ruby Lindsay (1887–1919), graphic artist; and
Sir Daryl Lindsay (1889–1976), painter and director of the National Gallery of Victoria from 1942 to 1956. Norman's son
Raymond (1904–60) and Daryl's wife
Joan (1896–1984) were also painters. For over half a century this family, through one or other of its members, played a leading role in Australian art. The most interesting character among them was Norman Lindsay, who according to Robert
Hughes (
The Art of Australia, 1970) ‘has some claim to be the most forceful personality the arts in Australia have ever seen’. He believed that the main impulse of art and life was sex, and his work was often denounced as pornographic. However, when he saw some of Lindsay's works at an exhibition of Australian art in London in 1923, Sir William
Orpen commented that they were ‘certainly vulgar, but not in the least indecent. They are extremely badly drawn, and show no sense of design and a total lack of imagination.’ Norman's son
Jack Lindsay (1900–90) was a writer who settled in England in 1926. His books include biographies of several major artists, notably
Courbet (1973) and
Turner (1966).
