Creswick District Development Association

Percival Lindsay

percy
The eldest son Percival, born on 17 September 1870, early showed an interest in art, receiving encouragement from S. A. Edmonds, a local bank manager and amateur painter with whom he occasionally sketched on week-ends, and at the weekly painting class in Ballarat of Frederic S. Sheldon. Lindsay was already a competent landscape painter by the time he joined the outdoor painting class conducted by Walter Withers at Creswick in January 1893, as his 'Creswick 1892' (Ballarat Art Gallery), somewhat influenced by David Davies.

In 1895 Percy's brother Lionel encouraged him to settle in Melbourne and take classes in drawing at the National Gallery School but after a few months he went home. In 1897 he returned to Melbourne and began to draw for the illustrated press, continuing to paint, particularly around Heidelberg. On 23 March 1907 at Collingwood he married Jessie Hammon, daughter of a Creswick storekeeper. For some years he worked in the Sun Art studios in Bourke Street with Cyril Dillon.

At Lionel's suggestion he moved to Sydney in 1917 when he took over from Lionel as the principal illustrator for the New South Wales Bookstall Co., working on thirty-three of their books between 1919 and 1926, including stories by 'Steele Rudd' and Vance Palmer. A charming Bohemian who enjoyed the company of convivial friends, Percy was the least ambitious of the Lindsays and the most competent painter in the family. His best works are in the Ballarat gallery. An exhibition of his etchings was held in the Macquarie Galleries, Sydney, in March 1929. Predeceased by his wife and survived by their son, Percy Lindsay died at North Sydney on 21 September 1952 and was cremated. His artist friends at the funeral gave three cheers for the departed.

Two of Percy's works are on display at the Creswick Museum.