Norman Lindsay (1879 – 1969)

The Dream, 1923

Enter the magicians, 1927

Tom O'Bedlam, 1918

Walpurgis, 1924

To the Festival, 1934

Moonlight's Piper, 1925

Visitors to Hell

Adventure, 1921

Self-portrait, 1930

Little Witch, 1937

The Sphinx's Secret, 1931

Adolescence, 1923

The Innocents, 1925

The Pursuit, 1920

Debut, 1920

Powers of Earth, 1927

The Sorcerer's Servants, 1960

Capriccio, 1932

A Star Explodes, 1932

The Funeral March Of Don Juan, 1924

Allegro Vivace 8th Symphony (B. 269), 1925

The Sphinx, 1920

Invocation

Gathering of the Shades, 1917

The Dragon Slayer, 1945

Strange Lands, 1932

Goodnight, 1920

Strange Seas

Don Juan in Hell, 1918

Thieves’ Kitchen, 1929

Tom O'Bedlam, 1918

Vanquished

The Wowser's Retinue, 1932

Venus In Arcady, 1938

Sea Magic

Bacchanalian Revels, 1940

Devils & Witches: Witches Dance, 1923

The Audience, 1925

The Witches Sabbath, 1917

The Entourage, 1940

Bargains, 1927

Reflections, 1919

The Grey-Eyed Girl, 1913

Witches and Warlocks

Enigma, 1919

Illustration from Colombine, published 1920 by Angus and Robertson in Sydney

My Ancestors, 1904

Treasure, 1925

Quest, 1913

Tam O'Shanter

Odysseus, 1925

Unknown Seas, 1922

Desert Island

"Norman Alfred William Lindsay (22 February 1879 – 21 November 1969) was an Australian artist, etcher, sculptor, writer, editorial cartoonist, scale modeler, and an accomplished amateur boxer. He was born in Creswick, Victoria.

 Lindsay is widely regarded as one of Australia's greatest artists, producing a vast body of work in different media, including pen drawing, etching, watercolour, oil and sculptures in concrete and bronze. A large body of his work is housed in his former home at Faulconbridge, New South Wales, now the Norman Lindsay Gallery and Museum.

In 1895, Lindsay moved to Melbourne to work on a local magazine with his older brother Lionel. His Melbourne experiences are described in Rooms and Houses. In 1901, he and Lionel joined the staff of the Sydney Bulletin, a weekly newspaper, magazine and review. His association there would last fifty years. Lindsay wrote the children's classic The Magic Pudding published in 1918 and created a scandal when his novel Redheap (supposedly based on his hometown, Creswick) was banned due to censorship laws. Many of his novels have a frankness and vitality that matches his art.

His frank and sumptuous nudes were highly controversial. In 1940, Soady took sixteen crates of paintings, drawings and etchings to the U.S. to protect them from the war. Unfortunately, they were discovered when the train they were on caught fire and were impounded and subsequently burned as pornography by American officials. Soady's older brother Lionel remembers Lindsay's reaction: "Don't worry, I'll do more."

Lindsay's creative output was vast, his energy enormous. Several eyewitness accounts tell of his working practices in the 1920s. He would wake early and produce a watercolour before breakfast, then by mid-morning he would be in his etching studio where he would work until late afternoon. He would work on a concrete sculpture in the garden during the afternoon and in the evening write a new chapter for whatever novel he was working on at the time.

As a break, he would work on a model ship some days. He was highly inventive, melting down the lead casings of oil paint tubes to use for the figures on his model ships, made a large easel using a door, carved and decorated furniture, designed and built chairs, created garden planters, Roman columns and built his own additions to the Faulconbridge property.

In 1994 Sam Neill played a fictionalised version of Lindsay in John Duigan's Sirens, set and filmed primarily at Lindsay's Faulconbridge home. "

- selected quotations taken from a biography on the artist at Wikipedia. 

A video tour of Lindsay's home and studio can be found here.



Image sources include Deutscher and Hackett, National Gallery of Victoria, Australian Art Sales Digest, Sotheby's Australia, and Book Graphics.