Sir Lionel Arthur Lindsay

Sir Lionel Arthur Lindsay was an Australian artist, well known for his etchings and paintings. He was born in Creswick, Victoria in 1874 into a creative artistic family and studied at the National Gallery School in Melbourne. He taught himself etching and engraving in the 1890’s, while still a student, immediately prior to his first trip to Spain and England. On his return to Australia, he settled in Sydney as a freelance artist. In 1907 he held an extremely successful exhibition of etchings in Sydney and in 1921, when the Australian Painter-Etchers’ Society was formed, Lindsay was its first president. He began to exhibit in London in 1923 and had his most successful exhibition of that period with London Art Dealer, Colnaghi, in 1927, which guaranteed his reputation as a major printmaker and watercolourist. In Australia, he became a Trustee of the Art Gallery of New South Wales and was knighted for his services to Australian Art in 1941. Lionel Lindsay died in Melbourne in 1961 and his autobiography, Comedy of Life, was published posthumously. The Lionel Lindsay Art Gallery and Library in Toowoomba, Queensland, holds rare books, manuscripts and maps, and over 400 art works by members of the Lindsay family and other significant Australian painters.