Curio

State Library of New South Wales
Studies mostly of theatrical personalities

Studies mostly of theatrical personalities

c1895
Ink, pencil on paper
Bequest of Sir William Dixson, 1952
DL PX 72

The Lindsay brothers’ entry into the workforce in the 1890s coincided with the popularity of illustrated magazines such as the Bulletin. The demand these publications created for cartoons and humorous illustrations enabled Norman and Lionel to earn a living while they continued to develop and exhibit their art.

On the pages of this sketchbook, Lionel Lindsay has depicted some of the friends he made in Melbourne around this time, mostly fellow students and artists who were members of the Prehistoric Order of Cannibals Club, and who gathered at a monthly Saturday night Smoke Concert of the Victorian Artists’ Society. Also depicted are sketches he made during visits to theatres and ringsides, the city morgue, the racetrack and opium dens. One of Lionel’s first jobs in Melbourne was as a staff artist on the Hawklet magazine, where he contributed illustrations for its sensationalist stories about the dark and scandalous side of Melbourne – crimes, accidents, suicides – along with social highlights of the preceding week.

Ernest Moffitt

Ernest Moffitt (left page) was friend to both Norman and Lionel Lindsay. They had all lived for a time in a cottage at Charterisville, a stone mansion which had been converted into an artists’ colony near Eaglemont, northeast of Melbourne. Moffitt was also an artist, a promising etcher of soft, romantic landscapes but he died suddenly of peritonitis in March 1899. He was the first of Lindsay’s friends to die, and as a response to the tragedy Lindsay published a book in his memory. Titled A Consideration of the Art of Ernest Moffitt, the tribute to his talented young friend was the first book published on an Australian artist, and foreshadowed Lindsay’s later work as art critic.

Other friends

Other friends depicted on these pages are George Coates, an artist and teacher who established the Prehistoric Order of the Cannibals club in 1893, which included his bohemian art students Hugh MacLean (seated, right) and Leon Pole (left page).