Sir Ernest Daryl Lindsay (31 December 1889, in Creswick,

Victoria Victoria most commonly refers to: * Victoria (Australia), a state of the Commonwealth of Australia * Victoria, British Columbia, provincial capital of British Columbia, Canada * Victoria (mythology), Roman goddess of Victory * Victoria, Seyche ...

– 25 December 1976, in Mornington), known as Dan Lindsay, was an Australian artist.

Early life

He was the youngest son in a large family born to Anglo-Irish surgeon Robert Charles Alexander and Jane Elizabeth Lindsay (née Williams), of Creswick, Victoria, who had ten children. Daryl and his brothers Percy (the eldest), Lionel, and Norman, achieved distinction in the arts. Ruby, also an artist, became well known in artistic circles as the wife of the cartoonist/illustrator/journalist

Will Dyson William Henry Dyson (3 September 1880 – 21 January 1938) was an Australian illustrator and political cartoonist. In 1931 he was regarded as "one of the world's foremost black and white artists", and in 1980, "Australia's greatest cartoonist" ...

. Prior to World War I, Daryl became a jackaroo near

Collarenebri Collarenebri is a town in north western New South Wales, Australia. The town is in the Walgett Shire Local Government Area and is situated on the Barwon River approximately northeast of Walgett and south west of Mungindi on the Gwydir Highway. ...

Military service

He served with the AIF in France. Following his active service in France, In England he made a very substantial contributions to the advancement of military reconstructive surgery with the extensive set of images he produced for Sir Harold Gillies, while serving as Lieutenant D./E. Lindsay, the official "medical artist" at the specialist military hospital at Sidcup, in Kent.

Formal studies

He made many contacts in the art world and studied at the

Slade School of Art The UCL Slade School of Fine Art (informally The Slade) is the art school of University College London (UCL) and is based in London, England. It has been ranked as the UK's top art and design educational institution. The school is organised as ...

in London. He had moderate success with his paintings of white flowers - a difficult subject to capture successfully.

Career

Returning to Australia he became fascinated with the ballet during first tour (1936–1937) of "''Colonel W. de Basil's Monte Carlo Russian Ballet''" (i.e., the

Ballets Russes The Ballets Russes () was an itinerant ballet company begun in Paris that performed between 1909 and 1929 throughout Europe and on tours to North and South America. The company never performed in Russia, where the Revolution disrupted society. A ...

) to Australia, sketching them during rehearsals, as in their performances performances. He later published a book of his sketches, ''Back stage with the Covent Garden Russian ballet'', and illustrated

Arnold Haskell Arnold Lionel David Haskell (19 July 1903, London – 14 November 1980, Bath) was a British dance critic who founded the Camargo Society in 1930. With Ninette de Valois, he was influential in the development of the Royal Ballet School, later bec ...

's memoirs, ''Dancing Round the World: Memoirs of an Attempted Escape from Ballet''. In 1940, he became a curator at the

National Gallery of Victoria The National Gallery of Victoria, popularly known as the NGV, is an art museum in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Founded in 1861, it is Australia's oldest and most visited art museum. The NGV houses an encyclopedic art collection across two ...

, rising to director from 1942 to 1956. He also became a member of the

Commonwealth Art Advisory Board The National Gallery of Australia (NGA), formerly the Australian National Gallery, is the national art museum of Australia as well as one of the largest art museums in Australia, holding more than 166,000 works of art. Located in Canberra in th ...

in 1953. On 31 May 1956 he was

knighted A knight is a person granted an honorary title of knighthood by a head of state (including the Pope) or representative for service to the monarch, the church or the country, especially in a military capacity. Knighthood finds origins in the Gr ...

for "services to art".

Personal life

In 1922, in England, he married Joan à Beckett Weigall, who, as Joan Lindsay, would later write '' Picnic at Hanging Rock''. When the couple returned to live in Australia, they built a house called Mulberry Hill at

Langwarrin South Langwarrin South is an official bounded locality in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 47 km south-east of Melbourne's Central Business District, located within the City of Frankston local government area. Langwarrin South recorded a populati ...

, on the Mornington Peninsula, and lived there until the Great Depression forced them to take more humble lodgings in

Bacchus Marsh Bacchus Marsh (Wathawurrung: ''Pullerbopulloke'') is an urban centre and suburban locality in Victoria, Australia located approximately north west of the state capital Melbourne and west of Melton at a near equidistance to the major cities o ...

, renting out their home until the economic situation improved. Joan Lindsay left ''Mulberry Hill'' to the National Trust when she died in 1984.

Death

He died on Christmas Day 1976, in Mornington, Victoria, six days before his 87th birthday. He was survived by his wife. They had no children.Aiton, Douglas, "Death of the last of the famous Lindsay family of artists: Sir Daryl: A Man who loved Life", ''The Age'', (Tuesday, 28 December 1976), p.2.
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Publications

*
Back Stage with the Covent Garden Russian Ballet
' (Sydney: s.n., 1938?) *F. Philipp and J. Stewart, eds.,
In Honour of Daryl Lindsay: Essays and Studies
' (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1964) * ''The Leafy Tree: My Family'' (Melbourne: F. W. Cheshire, 1965).

Notes

References

First World War Embarkation Roll: Driver Daryl Ernest Lindsay (10883), collection of the ''Australian War Museum''.

First World War Nominal Roll: Lieutenant Daryl Ernest Lindsay, collection of the ''Australian War Museum''.

First World War Service Record Lieutenant Daryl Ernest Lindsay, ''National Archives of Australia''.

External links

Lindsay's work
in the National Library of Australia
Daryl Lindsay, Papers, 1929-1976 (MS4864)
National Library of Australia {{DEFAULTSORT:Lindsay, Daryl 1890 births 1976 deaths Australian Knights Bachelor 20th-century Australian painters 20th-century Australian male artists People from Creswick, Victoria Artists from Victoria (Australia) Australian male painters Medical illustrators Australian military personnel of World War I Military personnel from Victoria (Australia) Australian people of English descent Australian people of Irish descent Lindsay family