Short Biography of Norman Lloyd Norman Lloyd was born on 16 October 1895 near Newcastle, NSW, where he attended primary school. He left school in 1911 and and started to work and study painting with Julian Ashton and James R Jackson in Sydney. On his 21st birthday in 1916 he enlisted with the Australian Imperial Forces and was transported to Europe where he was seriously wounded in battle a year later. After returning to Sydney in February 1918, he took up painting lessons at the Julian Ashton Art School again. From 1921 to 1926, Lloyd exhibited with galleries in Sydney and Melbourne, showing landscapes and Sydney harbour scenes painted in the more traditional style of his teachers. From 1926 to 1929, Norman Lloyd visited Europe and travelled widely in Italy and France, exhibiting in the UK, France and Australia, culminating in a solo exhibition at Macquarie Galleries in Sydney. Norman Lloyd in his late 20s (photograph from "The Bulletin", 1922) In the 1930s, Lloyd emigrated to London with his wife Edith for good, setting up a boarding house in upmarket St Johns Wood and establishing himself quickly in the new society, being a kind, generous and interested man with a broad horizon. His mansion became a meeting point and home for many Australian expats, among them painters Will Ashton, Alison Rehfisch and George Duncan. The Lloyds hosted pianist Nancy Weir, and war correspondent Harold Fyffe was a close friend, who introduced Lloyd to H G Wells and George Bernard Shaw.     Lloyd established himself also professionally, when he was elected member of the exclusive Royal Institute of Oil Painters (ROI) in 1936 and of the London Sketch Club, over which he presided during 1941 to 1942. He also kept his connection with Australia by becoming a Fellow of the Royal Art Society of New South Wales, and in 1949 Henry Hanke’s portrait of Norman Lloyd was chosen to be hung in the Archibald Prize of the Art Gallery of New South Wales. From 1933 until 1970, Lloyd exhibited regularly with the ROI, and showed at the Royal Academy of London. The titles testify of Lloyd’s love for mediterranean Europe - Italy, Spain, France, Turkey and Morocco, inspiring joyful land, sea and mountainscapes, in a style that evoked impressionism. Lloyd was a prolific painter who was able to paint fast, preferring textural oil and pastels. From 1947 onwards, Lloyd spent the summers with Zénaïde Robin - whom he had met in Paris after the war - in the heart of France in Chassignolles. This liaison strengthened his connection with France and probably led to his exhibiting at several Salons of the Société des Artistes Français from 1947 until 1962, and also at the Salon d’Hiver in Paris.   After the death of Zénaïde Robin in 1954, Lloyd was willed her house in Chassignolles until he died, and it seems that he moved to Chassignolles permanently in 1974, at the age of 80. In the early 1980s he returned to England where he died in Lancaster on 5 March 1983. The ‘Times’ of London printed a short obituary. In 1989 and 1990, Lloyd’s work was shown at Savill Galleries in Sydney alongside a number of important Australian artists. In 1990 Christopher Day Gallery, Sydney, dedicated a solo exhibition to Norman Lloyd, and 1991 saw his work again at a group exhibition in Deutscher Fine Art, Melbourne. Lloyd’s work is now represented in the Art Gallery of Western Australia, the Queensland Art Gallery, the University of Sydney Art Collection, university and gallery colelciton in the US,  and numerous private collections in Australia, Europe and US. Norman Lloyd - A life in paintings An art student going to war We get to know a few data through the enlistment record for the Australian Imperial Forces (AIF), which he joined to the day on his 21st birthday. As next of kin, his father David Lloyd is listed, living at William Street, Hamilton near Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia. As trade or calling he writes proudly Art Student. Before he enlisted for war service, he had been studying first with James R. Jackson, the Australian landscape painter, and then Julian Ashton, founder of the Julian Ashton Art School in Sydney who taught the likes of Elioth Gruner, George Lambert, Thea Proctor, Sid Long and William Dobell. Of his appearance, we know also from his enlistment records that Lloyd measured 5" 4 3/4' (164 cm), weighed 126 pounds (57 kg) and that he had blue eyes and dark hair with a medium complexion. As religion Church of England is given. Only three weeks after enlisting, Lloyd sailed on the HMAT Suevic to Europe. In September 1917, Lloyd was seriously injured on the Western Front by gunshots to both legs, but they are saved from amputation by a skilled American surgeon. First successes Lloyd returned to Sydney on the HMAT Runic in February 1918 and after being de-mobbed in May 1918, took up painting studies with Julian Ashton again, and began to exhibit from 1921 onwards in Sydney. After the war,  Lloyd settled in Dee Why north of Sydney - like other notable Sydney landscape artists, among them his teacher James R. Jackson. Lloyd was successful with his first solo exhibitions in Sydney and Melbourne from the 1920s onwards, and they were reviewed very positively in numerous newspapers - read them in Press 1920_1933 William Moore in his book 'The Story of Australian Art', Angust & Robertson, Sydney, 1934, vol. I, p. 119, writes: "Suburbia ends and the bush begins at Dee Why. I suppose this, and the reason that it is only a little over an hour's travel from Sydney, explain why so many artists have settled there at one time or another. Perched on the side of a miniature waterfall rises the studio of Bruce Robertson, the etcher, (...) On a height overlooking the sea, are the homes of Lawson Balfour, G.K. Townshend, and Frederick and Constance Tregear. A bungalow called "Cezanne" was once the home of Roland Wakelin. Along the Pacific Parade stands the solidly built house formlery occupied by J. Muir Auld. Other artists residing at this corner by the Pacific are L.J. BArnes and Marion Ferrier, the first woman artist to settle in the place. As a sketching ground, Dee Why was discovered by the late Cecil Hartt in 1912, when the place was mainly bush, the nearest post office being at Brookvale. Among former resident artists were James R. Jackson, Norman Lloyd, George Finey, Mick Paul, and Jim Emery. Will Ashton has motored there for a day's sketching; and Maud Sherwood painted a striking impression of the surfing beach." In 1926, Lloyd left for Europe again and exhibited throughout Europe and also sent works to Australia on a regular basis, culminating in solo exhibitions in Sydney and Melbourne. Lloyd was able to paint quickly, and his output remained prolific over the next decades. Norman Lloyd in London in the 1930s – Memories of a good friend Documentary film maker Mike Rubbo has tracked down one of Lloyd's old friends from his years in the 1930s in London; Francis Sutton is still living on the New South Wales Central Coast and has given us some great insight into the man Norman Lloyd was. Francis Sutton knew Lloyd in the 1930s and the image of a generous, kind and very softly spoken man with a natural talent for story-telling, conviviality and attracting interesting friends emerges. Sutton was at the time a young unemployed commercial artist, and Norman Lloyd and his wife Edith kindly took him in rent-free. Sutton eventually did very well in his chosen profession in London. Lloyd lived in London at the time, in 66 Avenue Road, St. Johns Wood, and moved later to 61 Marlborough Place, St John's Wood. Both were large and grand English homes in lovely parts of London, which Norman Lloyd and his wife Edith ran as boarding houses. They took in lodgers, enjoyed parties and had a full-time butler. The watercolour on the right is a view from the Lloyd residence at Marlborough Place by Francis Sutton, dated 12 December 1938. Norman Lloyd told Sutton how he had met Edith (apparently the daughter of a wealthy family): passing her in Macquarie Street in Sydney when she remarked that he looked sick and took him to see a doctor. The story goes he was apparently bitten by a venomous snake while painting outdoors that morning and hadn’t noticed… Famous friends and acquaintances Among the acquaintances and visitors were writers H.G. Wells and George Bernard Shaw, whom Lloyd probably met through his friend war correspondent Hamilton Fyffe.   Friends residing with Lloyd before World War II   included Sydney Rubbo, son of influential Australian painter Antonio Dattilo Rubbo (1870 - 1955). Sydney studied medicine in London and also painted, always still lifes of flasks, test tubes and bunsen burners - all important to a doctor's study. His wife Ellen Rubbo  (nee Gray) was a very successful commercial artist and dashing young woman who created fashionable dresses for the ladies residing in the Lloyd mansion at the time, including Irish fabric designer Maggie Moore. Other notable Australian artists to live at Lloyd's home were Alison Rehfisch (1900 - 1975) and George Duncan (1904 - 1974) who looked very bohemian. According to Francis Sutton. George Duncan had been a private detective in Sydney specialising in divorce cases before turning to art. Duncan and Rehfisch had begun their affair during there studies at Antonio Dattilo Rubbo's art school in Sydney. It seems that George Duncan was actually rescued by Norman Lloyd, as Duncan was at one point starving in a room in London. Visitors included Australian pianist Nancy Weir and the Danish diplomat Paul Ban-Jansen. Painter Will Ashton (1881 - 1963) also visited and lived with the Lloyds in London and even joined Norman Lloyd on a painting trip to Spain. Lloyd recalled later that Will Ashton was intimidated by the rough fisher folk that he stayed with. Norman Lloyd also knew William Dobell (1899 - 1970), who had studied at the Julian Ashton school in Sydney from 1925, went on to live in boarding houses in England from 1929 on a travelling scholarship, living near the Lloyds in 1933 in Alexander Street, Bayswater, and exhibiting also in 1933 with the Royal Academy. Norman Lloyd saw and discussed Dobell’s famous oil sketch “The Dead Landlord” from 1936. Topics at the large dinner table covered everything, with a favourite subject of Lloyd’s   - of course – being art, techniques and artists. The home also housed Lloyd’s studio, which was a light-filled room with high ceilings and large windows, full of paintings, as was the whole house. It seems that Lloyd also sold his paintings directly from there on occasion. Francis Sutton confirms that Lloyd was a fast painter, enjoying plein-air painting and experimenting with various styles, and that he never doubted that he was a serious painter. Artistic recognition in London Recognition came through exhibitions in highly respected galleries such as Leger’s Gallery in Old Bond Street, and the Royal Academy, London, and in 1934 Lloyd was included in the “Who's Who in Art”. 1935 saw him become a member of the Royal Institute of Oil Painters – a highly exclusive society that is restricted to 65 members. They are elected by existing members, first as associates for five years, with full membership possible only after that. Other artist members included Walter Sickert, Henri Fantin-Latour and Auguste Rodin.   At some stage in the 1930s Lloyd joined The London Sketch Club of which he became president during 1941 and 1942. Francis Sutton remembers also that Norman Lloyd spent three months in Spain to paint and left the country when the Civil War broke out in July 1936. Lloyd mostly kept his experiences in World War I to himself, but would open up to his friend at times.   Sutton returned to Australia during the beginning of World War II. After the war, he sent a food parcel to Lloyd which he gratefully acknowledged in a letter to his Australian friend. After that, they lost touch, as the friend never made it back to London, nor Lloyd back to Australia, it seems. The portrait of Norman Lloyd was painted by Henry Hanke in oil, measuring 91.5 x 71 cm, for the Archibald Prize 1949 (the prestigious portrait prize awarded every year by the Art Gallery of New   South Wales, generating great interest and discussion both in the art world and the wider audience). The fact that he was portrayed for this prize suggests that Norman Lloyd was still well known in Australia at the time and that he was connected in artists' circles. Henry Aloysius Hanke (1901 - 1989) was a very respected artist himself, who had won the Archibald Prize in 1934 with a self-portrat and the Sulman Prize in 1936, and went on to become director of the Royal Art Society of New South Wales after World War II. The painting is illustrated in "Archibald Prize Illustrated", January 1950, Legend Press, plate 43. Exhibitions continue in London The records of the Royal Institute of Oil Painters give vital clues as to where Norman Lloyd lived: the listing starts in 1932 with 66 Avenue Road, St. John's Wood, London, then moves to 61 Marlborough Place in 1937 and 1947 finds him 63 Marlborough Place, St. John's Wood. This is one building down from the one remembered by the young Australian friend. This location is listed as Norman Lloyd's home or contact address until 1970. From 1974 until 1976, the R.O.I. has his contact details down as Chassignolles, Indre 36/400, France Norman Lloyd lived well over 40 years in the London, and indeed in the same suburb. In the history of the London Sketch Club by David Cuppleditch, Norman Lloyd is mentioned several times. In 1976   Cecil Wade, the sketcher and calligrapher, wrote 'I look upon the LSC now, as Bransby Williams put it, as "pictures in the fire": past scenes of painting with grand fellows like John Hassall, Sydney Weeks, Edgar Norfield, Norman Lloyd, Irwin Atkinson, Charles Robinson, Charles Bryant, Harry Riley and many others of equal stature. All happy memories and quite impossible to put into writing . . .' 'Presidents during the War years were S van Abbé ARE, RBA, Norman Lloyd ROI, FRSA, (1941-42) David Ghilchik ROI, Fred Gardner and Donald Blake RI. Lloyd was another Australian, born in 1895 in Hamilton. He studied at the Sydney School of Art and on the Continent before settling in England. He was elected to the ROI in 1935 and in the Sixties retired to France, letting his membership lapse. He rekindled his association with the Club in 1983 shortly before his death.' Norman Lloyd's life in France We get more clues about Norman Lloyd’s life after 1940 from a book by Gillian Tindall, titled ‘Célestine – Voices from a French Village” (Minerva, published 1996 by Mandarin Paperbacks). According to this account, Norman Lloyd worked as a liaison officer in Paris after the Liberation in 1944, and that is where he met Zénaïde Robin (1895 – 1954). She was a secretary from Chassignolles, a small village in the middle of France, halfway between Clermont-Ferrand and Lyon. She had moved to Paris between the wars and enjoyed life in her own independent way, being an intelligent, warm, and kind-hearted woman – but not the marrying type, yet enjoying the attentions of gentleman friends and attracted the boheme circles. Norman Lloyd in the late 1950s (photograph of his Louvre membership pass for 1959 - 1960) Lloyd and Robin started a relationship, and he spent ten summers with Zénaïde in her house in Chassignolles until her early death in 1954. Lloyd's other life in England was known, but not mentioned, and he was known as the “English” in this rural part of France. Zénaïde left the house and its contents to Lloyd for the rest of his life to use as he saw fit. He was very handy and renovated and added rooms, a kitchen, bathroom and a verandah to it. He returned regularly to Chassignolles over the next thirty years. Read Gillian Tindall's exclusive contribution in Life in France. From the mid-1970s, Norman Lloyd's art dealer Arthur Stewart of Donegal and London started organising exhibitions of his work in the USA. From 1978 to 2004, there were a number of shows were held in the US. Norman Lloyd's exhibitor card for the Paris Salon.
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