Lyndon Raymond Dadswell (18 January 1908 – 7 November 1986) was an Australian artist, remembered as the country's first official war sculptor.

History

Dadswell was born in

Stanmore Stanmore is part of the London Borough of Harrow in London. It is centred northwest of Charing Cross, lies on the outskirts of the London urban area and includes Stanmore Hill, one of the highest points of London, at high. The district, which ...

, Sydney, the son of Arthur Raymond Dadswell and his wife Maysel Cobcroft Dadswell, née Pidgeon. He was educated at the

Sydney Church of England Grammar School , motto_translation = , established = , type = Independent single-sex and co-educational early learning, primary and secondary day and boarding school , grades = Early learning ...

("Shore") and attended

Julian Ashton Julian Rossi Ashton (27 January 185127 April 1942) was an English-born Australian artist and teacher. He is best known for founding the Julian Ashton Art School in Sydney and encouraging Australian painters to capture local life and scenery '' ...

's Sydney Art School 1924–1925 and

East Sydney Technical College The National Art School (NAS) is a tertiary level art school, located in , an inner-city suburb of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. The school is an independent accredited higher education provider offering specialised study in studio arts p ...

1926–1929 under Rayner Hoff, where he early showed an interest in sculpture, and joined

Paul Montford __NOTOC__ Paul Raphael Montford (1 November 1868 – 15 January 1938) was an English-born sculptor, also active in Australia; winner of the gold medal of the Royal Society of British Sculptors in 1934.Jenny Zimmer,Montford, Paul Raphael (1868–19 ...

, who was working on Melbourne's

Shrine of Remembrance The Shrine of Remembrance (commonly referred to as The Shrine) is a war memorial in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, located in Kings Domain on St Kilda Road. It was built to honour the men and women of Victoria who served in World War I, but ...

, for which he completed twelve

bas-relief Relief is a sculptural method in which the sculpted pieces are bonded to a solid background of the same material. The term ''relief'' is from the Latin verb ''relevo'', to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is to give the impression that the ...

panels, gaining a reputation as an academic sculptor. He returned to Sydney in 1932 and began experimenting with the

art deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...

style characteristic of much work in Sydney in the 1920s and 1930s. He received several major commissions, and in 1933 won the

Wynne Prize The Wynne Prize is an Australian landscape painting or figure sculpture art prize. As one of Australia's longest-running art prizes, it was established in 1897 from the bequest of Richard Wynne. Now held concurrently with the Sir John Sulman Prize ...

for his statue ''Youth'' in the

Art Gallery of New South Wales The Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW), founded as the New South Wales Academy of Art in 1872 and known as the National Art Gallery of New South Wales between 1883 and 1958, is located in The Domain, Sydney, Australia. It is the most importa ...

, enabling him to travel to London and enrol in several

Royal Academy The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly in London. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its pur ...

schools. There he was influenced by the work and teaching of

Henry Moore Henry Spencer Moore (30 July 1898 – 31 August 1986) was an English artist. He is best known for his semi- abstract monumental bronze sculptures which are located around the world as public works of art. As well as sculpture, Moore produced ...

Barbara Hepworth Dame Jocelyn Barbara Hepworth (10 January 1903 – 20 May 1975) was an English artist and sculptor. Her work exemplifies Modernism and in particular modern sculpture. Along with artists such as Ben Nicholson and Naum Gabo, Hepworth was a leadi ...

Carl Milles Carl Milles (; 23 June 1875 – 19 September 1955) was a Swedish sculptor. He was married to artist Olga Milles (née Granner) and brother to Ruth Milles and half-brother to the architect Evert Milles. Carl Milles sculpted the Gustaf Vasa statu ...

Jacob Epstein Sir Jacob Epstein (10 November 1880 – 21 August 1959) was an American-British sculptor who helped pioneer modern sculpture. He was born in the United States, and moved to Europe in 1902, becoming a British subject in 1911. He often produc ...

, and

Frank Dobson Frank Gordon Dobson (15 March 1940 – 11 November 2019) was a British Labour Party politician. As Member of Parliament (MP) for Holborn and St. Pancras from 1979 to 2015, he served in the Cabinet as Secretary of State for Health from 1997 ...

. He returned to Australia in 1937 and gained a teaching position with the

. In 1940 he enlisted with the 2nd AIF, serving with the 2/3rd Battalion in Greece, Libya and Syria, where he was seriously wounded in Syria in June 1941, resulting in a partial loss of sight. Commissioned as a lieutenant, he was appointed a war artist at the Military History Section,

Heliopolis, Egypt Heliopolis (I͗wnw, Iunu or 𓉺𓏌𓊖; egy, I͗wnw, 'the Pillars'; cop, ⲱⲛ; gr, Ἡλιούπολις, Hēlioúpοlis, City of the Sun) was a major city of ancient Egypt. It was the capital of the 13th or Heliopolite Nome of Lower Eg ...

, for a time sharing a studio with

Ivor Hele Sir Ivor Henry Thomas Hele, CBE (13 June 1912 – 1 December 1993) was an Australian artist noted for portraiture. He was Australia's longest serving war artist and completed more commissioned works than any other in the history of Austra ...

, and in late 1941 was given the young artist John Dowie as an assistant. He was repatriated to Sydney, where in December 1942 he resigned his commission and completed the plaster model for his sculpture ''Greece'' in July 1943. He rejoined the East Sydney Technical College (later National Art School), where in 1966 he was appointed head of the Fine Arts section in 1966. In 1951 he was a founder, with Margel Hinder and

Robert Klippel Robert Klippel AO (19 June 192019 June 2001) was an Australian constructivist sculptor and teacher. He is often described in contemporary art literature as Australia's greatest sculptor. Throughout his career he produced some 1,300 pieces of ...

, of the Sculpture Society of New South Wales, whose "First Impressions" exhibitions gave emerging artists an opportunity to exhibit their work in progress to the general public.

Personal

Dadswell married Elza (born Eliza) Antoinette Ruth Stenning (1910–1994) at

Prahran Prahran (), also pronounced colloquially as Pran, is an inner suburb in Melbourne, Victoria (Australia), Victoria, Australia, 5 km south-east of Melbourne's Melbourne central business district, Central Business District, located within the City ...

on 24 May 1930. Elza in 1928 starred in the film '' The Devil's Playground'' which, due to an export ban, was not shown until 1966, and the

F. W. Thring Francis William Thring (2 December 1882 – 1 July 1936), better known as F. W. Thring, was an Australian film director, film producer, producer, and film exhibitor, exhibitor. He has been credited with the invention of the clapperboard. Early ...

film '' Harmony Row''. Their son Paul died from injuries received in a car crash in February 1934 — Dadswell's father was the driver. Elza found further success as an opera singer and was rich and famous while her husband was an impoverished art student. The couple divorced in 1939. Dadswell married again, to Audrey Margaret Herbert at

Mosman Mosman is a suburb on the Lower North Shore region of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Mosman is located 8 kilometres north-east of the Sydney central business district and is the administrative centre for the local governm ...

on 16 December 1939. They had a daughter Penelope Lynne Dadswell (born 1941) and a son in 1945. He died at Elizabeth Bay and his remains were cremated. He is represented at the

Australian War Memorial The Australian War Memorial is Australia's national memorial to the members of its armed forces and supporting organisations who have died or participated in wars involving the Commonwealth of Australia and some conflicts involving pe ...

, the

National Gallery of Australia The National Gallery of Australia (NGA), formerly the Australian National Gallery, is the national art museum of Australia as well as one of the largest art museums in Australia, holding more than 166,000 works of art. Located in Canberra in th ...

and most State galleries.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dadswell, Lyndon 1908 births 1986 deaths Australian sculptors Australian war artists