In 1924, Australian sculptor Frank ‘Guy’ Lynch created a piece called The Satyr. The half man, half beast of Greek mythology represents lustfulness and uninhibited revelry. It was acquired for £125 by the Art Gallery of NSW, after being exhibited at Sydney’s Anthony Horden Gallery. The sculpture was of plaster, painted to look like bronze. Years later the artist would say that he had made a separate fig leaf, to be attached if the Art Gallery considered it necessary (well, they didn’t). 😎
SOURCE – ART GALLERY OF NSW
29 year old Guy had modelled the head and torso of the Satyr on his younger brother and fellow artist Joe. A neighbourhood goat was tied up in the family’s backyard to provide a model for the cloven hoofed legs.
Three years after The Satyr was created, the Lynch boys and some friends boarded the harbour ferry Kiandra for a bohemian house party in Mosman. Guy and his new bride Marge sat outside, but an already inebriated Joe simply leaned against the railing. He had beer bottles stuffed into his overcoat pockets. At some point the cry went up in the darkness, ‘Man overboard’. How it happened was never established, but Joe was suddenly struggling in the water, weighed down by the bottles. Tragically, he could not be saved and his body was never recovered.
SOURCE – WIKIPEDIA
Source – Smith’s Weekly, May 21 1927
I have only been able to find one photo of Guy, probably taken by a street photographer in Sydney.
Guy Lynch (Right) with friend Rupert Ingleby, circa 1940 (Flickr)
Guy Lynch died on May 13 1967. In 1977 his widow Marge paid for The Satyr to be cast in bronze, something which had always been intended. It was placed by the gates to the Opera House. looking across to the area of harbour that had claimed Joe’s life fifty years earlier.
The bronze satyr overlooking Sydney Harbour.
My research into satyrs reveals they were usually very well endowed. Perhaps I need to have a closer at the Lynch sculpture to see why his offer of a fig leaf was passed up by the Art Gallery.
NOTE – Joe Lynch’s untimely death inspired the poem Five Bells, by his friend Kenneth Slessor;
….all I heard
Was a boat’s whistle, and the scraping squeal
Of seabird’s voices far away and bells,
Five bells. Five bells coldly ringing out.
Five bells.
In nautical terms, five bells indicates the end of a watch at 10.30 pm, the time of Joe’s death. In turn, the poem inspired John Olson’s wonderful mural, located in the foyer of the concert hall within the Sydney Opera House.
The mural Five Bells (Photo by Rob Conolly)
FOR MORE ON THE LIFE AND DEATH OF JOE LYNCH, CLICK HERE.
