Career
Lionel Lindsay constantly experimented in ways of making art. In Melbourne in the 1890s he became an adept photographer, and most photographic records of his family and his bohemian friends were taken by him.
He had long admired the etchings in the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria, but assumed the technique was not possible in Australia. When he saw that a local artist, John Shirlow, had begun to make etchings, Lindsay taught himself to do the same. He adapted an old knife polishing machine to print the small plates.
In 1899 after the death of their friend Ernest Moffitt, Lionel wrote the first monograph on an Australian artist, A Consideration of the Art of Ernest Moffitt. Norman Lindsay made the woodcuts for the cover and the publication was funded by their mutual friend, the composer Marshall-Hall.
For many years Lionel Lindsay combined his career as an artist with a paid position as an illustrator. After he returned to Australia he and Jean settled in Sydney, to be close to his brother, Norman. At Will Dyson’s suggestion he approached Banjo Paterson, then editor of the Evening News, to become its regular cartoonist. He remained with the paper until 1925.
In Sydney he continued to make etchings. In London he had seen an exhibition of Charles Meryon’s prints of old Paris, so in Sydney gave a similar romantic treatment of the “slums” of the Rocks. In 1910 Lionel, Jean and their two children moved to a “servantless house” designed by William Hardy Wilson, which Lionel named “Meryon”.
When his friend, and fellow etcher, Sydney Ure Smith, founded Art in Australia in 1916 Lionel Lindsay became a regular contributor. He also contributed to Art in Australia’s series of monographs on Australian artists. In 1918, when Lionel wrote the text for Norman Lindsay’s Pen Drawings, he called his brother a “genius”.
Lionel Lindsay’s prints of old Sydney brought him to the attention of the philanthropist and collector, William Dixson who, after buying all his early prints, then came to an arrangement to buy a copy of every state of all future prints. As a result, the Dixson Library in the State Library of NSW has the largest single collection of Lionel Lindsay’s oeuvre. Dixson also paid for Lionel Lindsay to write the first monograph on the colonial artist, Conrad Martens.
A special issue of Art in Australia devoted to printmaking brought Lionel Lindsay’s work to the attention of Harold Wright of the London dealer Colnaghi. In 1925 Wright wrote to Lindsay, praising his work, especially his wood engravings. Lionel made immediate plans to resign from his job at the Evening News, and travel to London.
In 1927 Lionel Lindsay exhibited the etchings he had made in Spain, Italy and France. These had been printed with Colnaghi’s master printmakers. They became one of the top selling exhibitions of the year. In less than a week he sold £1500 worth of prints.
Lionel Lindsay’s lifelong friendship with Harold Wright is recorded in their letters, held in the manuscripts collection of the Mitchell Library. They show how Wright enabled Lindsay, who was a Gallery trustee, to create the small but significant collection of old master prints for the Art Gallery of NSW. They also describe his hostility to modern art and his reasons for voting for William Dobell to be awarded the controversial Archibald Prize for his portrait of Joshua Smith.
Lionel’s close friendship with his brother Norman did not last. All the Lindsay family was devastated when news came that Reg Lindsay had been killed on the Western Front, on 31 December 1916. Lionel’s response was to intensely experiment with new ways of making art. He began to make wood engravings, initially based on the work of the 18th century British artist Thomas Bewick, an approach that was mocked by Norman. At the same time Lionel dismissed Norman’s attempts to speak with their dead brother via a ouija board.
There were quarrels and reconiliations, but when Norman quoted sections of Lionel’s adolescent diary in Redheap, a book that was banned in Australia, there was no more contact between the two. Lionel became closer to his youngest brother Daryl, a friendship recorded in letters held in the La Trobe Library.
Another friendship of Lionel Lindsay’s later years was with the then Attorney General, Robert Menzies whose mother Lionel had known when she was a Creswick shopkeeper’s daughter. This close friendship was the reason he became a foundation member of Menzies’ anti-modernist Australian Academy of Art. In 1941, during Menzies’ first term as Prime Minister, Lionel Lindsay was knighted for his services to Australian art in 1941.
As with many older Australian artists Lionel Lindsay was opposed to modern art, which he considered 'degenerate'. His friend, Basil Burdett, had hoped to persuade him that all was not bad with his selection for the 1939 Herald Exhibition of French and British Contemporary Art. But by the time the exhibition reached Australia the world was at war, Burdett was enlisted in the Air Force, and by 1942 was dead. The aggressive anti-traditionalist approach by Peter Bellew, enraged Lionel Lindsay and was a factor in his writing the anti-modernist polemic Addled Art.
The chapter, ”The Jew in Modern Art” reflected prevailing prejudices of his generation. However its publication coincided with news of the full extent of the Holocaust. Others, including those who had written agreeing with Lindsay, could pretend they were not anti-semitic, but Lionel Lindsay was in print and so took the brunt of the art world’s revulsion at the ancient prejudice.
