Ruby Lindsay was born in Creswick, Australia in 1885, studying art at the National Gallery School in Melbourne. After her marriage to the cartoonist Will Dyson in 1909, she moved with him to London in 1911, where she developed a career as an illustrator for books and for many notable English periodicals, including 'Strand Magazine' and 'The Sphere'; she also drew political cartoons for Christabel Pankhurst's 'The Suffragette' and created posters supporting feminist and socialist causes. A versatile artist, Lindsay became best known for her black and white illustrations, although she also produced watercolours and oils, prior to her early death in the Spanish Flu epidemic of 1919.
Illustrator Ruby Lindsay was born in Creswick, Australia on 20 March 1885. Aged 16, she left home to study art at the National Gallery School in Melbourne, where she first became interested in illustration. Her visibility and success was partly overshadowed by her brothers, all well-known cartoonist and artists, and she therefore decided to hide her relationship to them by signing her works as ‘Ruby Lind’. Occasionally, she produced drawings for the magazines Hawklet and Bulletin, and regularly for the Adelaide satirical journal, the Gadfly. She also illustrated books, including William Moore's Studio Sketches, and designed posters. At the 1907 Women’s Work Exhibition in Melbourne, she won the first prize for her Book Lovers’ Library poster, and was also awarded a silver medal and a special prize of five guineas for best design exhibit.
After her marriage to the cartoonist Will Dyson in 1909, she moved with him to London in 1911. She soon began receiving commissions, producing illustrations for The Sunday Strand and Home Magazine and, following her membership of the Chelsea Art Club, she received even more attention from book and magazine publishers. A versatile artist, Lindsay became most famous for her black and white illustrations, although she also produced watercolours and oils. In her elegant pen and ink drawings, and even more markedly in her pencil sketches, ‘she is a master of the arresting line, a line of firmness and charm, a true expression of gracious individuality’ (New Statesman 1921, p. 400). Lindsay worked as an illustrator for Strand Magazine, The London Opinion, The Sphere and The Sketch. The full maturity of her illustrative talent was revealed by her pen and ink drawings illustrating The Lady Marjorie Papers by Holbrook Jackson published in T. P.'s Weekly (in 1916 renamed To-Day). She also sent back illustrations to various Australian publications, including Lone Hand and the Bulletin and 'ghosted' for Dyson who illustrated for a wide range of newspapers and journals and who quickly established a successful career as a political cartoonist and caricaturist in England.
Among the books Lindsay illustrated were Epigrams of Eve, What Eve Said, Fables of Everyday Folks, Hello Soldier and Naughty Sophia, contributing nearly one hundred drawings to the latter. Lindsay also drew political cartoons for Christabel Pankhurst’s The Suffragette, as well as designing posters supporting socialist and feminist causes. In the 1910 issue of the annual produced by the British-Australasian, Lindsay drew illustrations for a short story by Katharine Susannah Prichard and a poem by Alice Grand Rosman, both Australian authors. However, one of Lindsay's best-known images served a political cause: a lithograph poster produced in 1912 with the slogan: 'Mothers! 'Make the World Fit for Me: Vote Labour’. The subject was a small naked girl with arms outstretched, probably inspired by her daughter Betty, born in 1911. By 1914 Lindsay and her husband had settled in Glebe Place, Chelsea. During the First World War she stayed in London with Betty while her husband became Australia’s first official war artist. This was a difficult period for Lindsay, and she deprived herself in order to ensure that her daughter’s health did not suffer with wartime rationing. Her brother Reginald, who had joined her in London, was killed on the Somme in 1916, and her youngest brother Daryl was transferred to serve as Dyson`s batman following this tragic loss. In early 1919 Lindsay travelled to Ireland with Daryl to renew contact with their Irish cousins. On this journey she caught a chill which later proved to be Spanish influenza.
Ruby Lindsay died in London, England on 12 March 1919, six days after her return from Ireland. In 1920 a collection of her drawings was published in London by Trudie Palmer. A portrait of Lindsay by Australian painter George W. Lambert was included in the Commemorative Exhibition of Works by late Members held at the Royal Academy of Arts in 1933. Her work is not currently represented in UK public collections.
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