Melodrama...

This work is from a group of fifteen photographs relating to the artists Lionel (1874–1971) and Norman Lindsay (1879–1979) and their circle, taken at the family home in Creswick, Victoria and at Norman Lindsay’s home in Faulconbridge, New South Wales. According to the inscription on the reverse, this scene shows Will Dyson (left) in the role of ‘the villain’, being foiled by hero Ted Dyson (second from left). Percy Lindsay (centre), the eldest of the nine Lindsay children, is the ‘Guardian angel hovering over a dying child’, played by Reg Lindsay; Mary Lindsay (second from right) plays the child’s ‘Grief stricken mother’ and Ruby Lindsay (right) is the ‘villainess’ of the piece. Percy Lindsay (1870–1952) studied at the National Gallery School in Melbourne and later moved to Sydney, where he took over from his brother Lionel as the principal illustrator for the New South Wales Bookstall Co. Ruby Lindsay (1885–1919) also trained at the National Gallery School and, like her brothers, worked as an illustrator for publications such as the Bulletin. She and Will Dyson (1880–1938) married in 1909 and travelled to London, where Dyson’s cartoons attracted a large intellectual following. Dyson was appointed an official war artist for the AIF in 1916. Ruby died in London in 1919 having contracted influenza during the pandemic that emerged at the end of the First World War.

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2008