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Artist: Lintott, Henry John, RSA · 1877-1965

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A painting "Avatar" was exhibited at the RSA in 1917 catalogue number 174. This was almost certainly the same painting that Lintott submitted as his…

A painting "Avatar" was exhibited at the RSA in 1917 catalogue number 174. This was almost certainly the same painting that Lintott submitted as his Diploma Work ( see description of painting in reveiw of 1917 exhibition). According to the poet Wilfred Owen who mingled in artistic circles in Edinburgh during his period of convalescence at Craiglockhart Hospital, Lintott painted another version of 'Avatar' "Bibby of the 'Annual' wrote to the artist/ asking for the same canvas with additions (a wounded soldier). The/ Artist (forget his name) wrote back: accepted - fee £500. This I am/ specially anxious to see 'Bibby's'. Has Father got it? If not I must buy one.' In a letter written from Craiglockhart dated 25 September 1917 to his mother Owen mentions visiting John Duncan RSA and says that 'I hear Lintott's bargain with Bibby took the form of a dying/ English soldier and four angels carrying off a crystal! Something like/ that."

On 2 October 1917 Owen wrote his mother that he had visited Lintott whom he described as "an excellent gentleman." On the 14th in a further letter he wrote her that he had visited the Lintotts again and that Lintott should have "reason to be proud of his work."

In the period in-between Owen penned the first draft of "Dulce et Decorum Est."

© Royal Scottish Academy of Art & Architecture