Norman Lindsay (1879-1969) Australian
It was not until the late 1930âs that Norman found his âperfect modelâ, Rita Lee. Rita modelled for Norman from 1938 until 1942, when she married artist and photographer George Young.
 Rita was 18 when she began modelling and she had worked for other artists for about a year before she was introduced to Norman Lindsay. She remembers being very nervous as she walked up the stairs to his studio, but this quickly disappeared when the door was opened by âa little man with beautiful blue dancing eyes who had a palette and brushes in his handâ.
As for Norman, this is what he said of Rita: âOne of those, at least, arrived as the perfect model for the mĂŠtier of oil painting. That was Rita, a quiet reticent girl who seldom spoke, but who secreted within her all those emotional intensities from which any variation on the feminine image may be extracted.âRitaâs mother was Spanish and her father Chinese and her unusual colouring appealed to Norman; he called it âbuttery colouredâ. She was tall and long limbed with dark, glossy shoulder length hair and slightly slanted soft brown eyes.
Jane Lindsay, Normanâs daughter, described Rita during a visit to Springwood: âSerenity was her outstanding attribute. She talked very little and almost in a whisper ⌠hardly making her presence known â graceful and quiet. She managed to make a kitchen chair look like a throneâ.
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