Norman, Kodak, Rose, J.F Archibald, model and John Barr

Norman Lindsay (1879-1969), artist, cartoonist, and writer, came from a family that produced five artists. A delicate boy, Lindsay left the family home in Creswick when he was sixteen to live with his brother Lionel in Melbourne. Lionel was then a staff artist on the Hawklet, attending the National Gallery School and sharing a studio with George Coates. When Norman arrived in Melbourne he ghosted Lionel's drawings for the journal, his brother paying him ten shillings a week out of the thirty-five he earned. In late 1896 Norman became a cartoonist for the Hawklet in his own right, started to attend the life class at the National Gallery school and, with Lionel, joined the student fraternity the Prehistoric Order of Cannibals. The following year the brothers' styles began to diverge. In 1901 Norman moved north to make his permanent home in the Blue Mountains, henceforth working for the Bulletin in an association that lasted almost to his death. His first novel was published in 1913, and by the 1920s he was both proficient and prolific in pen and ink drawing, etching, woodcuts, painting and sculpture.

Rose Lindsay (née Soady, 1885-1978), artist's model, posed for Sydney Long, Antonio Dattilo Rubbo and Fred Leist before she met Norman Lindsay in 1902. By 1903 she was installed in his Rowe Street studio rooms as his model and lover, and they later married. Rose continued as Lindsay's principal model, becoming possibly the most frequently painted woman in the history of Australian art. She wrote two books on her life, Ma and Pa: My Childhood Memories (1963) and Model Wife: my life with Norman Lindsay (1967).

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2008