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The Satyr, Royal Botanic Gardens 2014

The Dictionary of Sydney was archived in 2021.

The Satyr, Royal Botanic Gardens 2014

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The Life and Death of Joe Lynch

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Sculpture Visual Arts

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The Satyr

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Lynch, Francis (Guy) Lynch, Joe

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Royal Botanic Gardens

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Foyle, Lindsay

Lindsay Foyle contributed cartoons to The Bulletin for almost 20 years and The Australian for over a decade. He has written on Australian cartooning for almost 30 years.

Private collection

The Life and Death of Joe Lynch

Had it not been for Kenneth Slessor's poem 'Five Bells', the death of Joe Lynch might have been just another drowning in Port Jackson, not the first, and regrettably not the last. Slessor's poem inspired John Olsen's 1963 painting, Five Bells, on permanent display at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, and his 1973 mural, Salute to Five Bells, installed in the northern foyer of the main concert hall at the Sydney Opera House. In the Royal Botanic Gardens near the Opera House gate, Guy Lynch's Satyr, modelled on Joe, looks out to sea to where his brother drowned and where the Manly Ferry passes on its daily route.

Sculpture

Visual Arts

The Satyr

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Sculpture by Guy (Frank) Lynch which was modelled on his younger brother, Joe Lynch, and a neighbourhood goat. Sculpted in plaster, the sculpture was painted bronze and exhibited to general acclaim in the Anthony Hordern Gallery in 1924 . It was purchased by the Art Gallery of New South Wales in 1926. Joe Lynch drowned in the harbour in 1927. In 1977, ten years after the artist's death, his widow paid for the work to be case in bronze and it was placed in the Botanic Gardens near the Opera House Gate, looking out towards the harbour where his brother had drowned.

Lynch, Joe

Cartoonist and black & white artist for Smith's Weekly and Melbourne Punch, whose death in Sydney Harbour in 1927 at the age of 29 inspired Kenneth Slessor's poem 'Five Bells'. He was the model for his brother Guy (Frank) Lynch's sculpture 'The Satyr', a bronze casting of which is in the Royal Botanic Gardens in his memory. He was also the model for his brother's statue of a New Zealand digger for the World War I memorial in Devonport, New Zealand, that is known colloquially as 'the untidy soldier'.

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Lynch, Francis (Guy)

Guy Lynch, known in Sydney as Frank Lynch, was a sculptor commissioned to do busts of several prominent Australians in the early to mid 20th century. His works include The Satyr, modelled on his brother Joe, that sits in the Botanic Gardens, and the depiction of Aboriginal people on one of the bronze panels on the doors of the Mitchell Library as well as the Pozieres diorama in the Australian War Memorial in Canberra. The brothers were born in Melbourne in the 1890s into a large Irish family that moved to New Zealand in the early 1900s. Both brothers enlisted with the New Zealand army in World War I and worked as artists on their discharge. Lynch's World War I memorial statue in Devonport, New Zealand, colloquially known as 'the untidy soldier', was also modelled on Joe. The brothers moved back to Australia in the 1920s, followed by their parents, and lived in a house purchased by Guy in Gladesville.

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Royal Botanic Gardens

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Harbourside gardens that combine scientific research with recreation for Sydneysiders.