Journey into past for lovely model

Press, 11 May 1979, Page 12

Journey into past for lovely model

Rita Young and her husband George are planning to go walkabout. And, in doing so, Rita hopes to find herself. If that sounds like some journey into selfawareness, resolving inner conflict and all the rest of it, it is really anything but. The Rita they will be looking for is Rita Lee — as Mrs Young was 35 to 40 years ago — the model with the striking eyes and magnificent complexion whose face looks out of all the pictures that Norman Lindsay painted for her when she was, in his own words, “his best model.”

Rita Young modelled for Lindsay between 1938 and 1943. ' When the great Australian artist and writer died, aged 90, in 1969 they were still firm friends. Mrs Young was then married with three children. Today ■ she is a grandmother with two grandchildren, a lot of memories and still, those

striking eyes that fascinated Lindsay. The eyes and the complexion are probably a legacy from her parentage. Her father was Chinese, her mother Spanish. Scattered throughout Australia are many of the pictures Lindsay painted

of her. Mrs Young and her husband, who is a lecturer in photography at a Sydney technical college, are planning their trip around Australia partly to see if they can find these pictures and partly to satisfy their love of the Australian bush. Many of the “Ritas” that Norman Lindsay painted hang in galleries and private collections in Australia. Their owners are able to reflect

comfortably that, in the opinion of a Sydney judge, a painting of Rita could be worth 10 per cent more than a picture of one of Lindsay’s many other models. Awarding an art collector $3OOO damages in the District Court in Sydney for the loss of a Lindsay nude, Mr Justice Redapple told him he would have got 10 per cent more had Rita been the subject of the painting.

The picture was stolen from a Sydney art gallery in 1976. Tile damages were awarded because, said the judge, there was a foreseeable risk of the painting being stolen, and the gallery owner had failed to take reasonable precautions. The owner of the painting had named the picture “Rita.” But Mrs Young said in evidence that she was not the model.

But, Mrs Young says she was not Lindsay’s

best model. "His wife Rose was the best.” The best known paintings of Rita are probably “Rita of the Nineties” and “The Black Hat.” The night he finished “Rita of the Nineties” she recalls “he was so happy he just danced round the floor — and I ws so happy for him.” Mrs Young was about 18 when she met Lindsay in a studio in Sydney and be asked her to model for him. “He just looked at my face and said: ‘Jolly good, jolly good’.”

When he asked her to model she said: “Oh, no, I’m too skinny.” Lindsay’s nudes often have an opulence of body, curvaceous bosoms and bottoms. But Lindsay, she says, did not always use just one model for a picture. “It wasn’t always my body,” says Mrs Young, who is still slim today. “He would sometimes use two models for the one picture; sometimes even more. “It was wonderful fun. I loved art and Mr Lindsay was a great artist.” She remembers him as

a great Australian and thinks she was lucky, to sit for him. ; Among treasured < possessions are some off the hundreds of sketches he made of her. On one he wrote: ’‘To my best model.”

Some people, she says, are still surprised today to find she modelled nude. “But they usually say:, •Since you’re such a nice person I’ll forgive you’,” she adds, the famous eyes lighting up. | She herself saw nothing unusual about it. '‘All my friends were artists. It was the accepted thing."