Michael Lindsay-Hogg

Michael Lindsay-Hogg could best be described as a multidisciplinary master – director, author and artist – commingled, each strength elbowing the others to prevail. What unifies all of Michael’s creative endeavors is his natural desire and ability as a storyteller.

Assuming his artistic persona, Michael’s paintings might invite comparison to those of Amedeo Modigliani, though Lindsay-Hogg’s are bolder, brighter, fascinatingly compelling tableaus. His works have been described as “fearless,” as Michael is prone to taking unapologetic risks in subject matter, composition and palette. Each dares the viewer to dive in and discover the who, what, where and why of the scene. Michael has drawn as long as he can remember and it is his childlike, unashamed artistic courage that makes all of his work so oddly seductive.

Michael was born in New York City on May 5, 1940 as the son of English baronet Edward Lindsay-Hogg and Geraldine Fitzgerald, the Irish actress. Charlie Chaplin, Bette Davis, Laurence Olivier, Humphrey Bogart, Olivia de Havilland and Henry Miller were amongst his mother’s many friends and admirers. And Orson Welles, with whom his mother had an enduring and complex relationship, which affected Michael’s entire life. Michael writes about it in his memoir, “Luck and Circumstance,” praised by, amongst others, Wes Anderson, Mick Jagger and Lorne Michaels.

“At the age of 16, I wanted to change my name for my abortive acting career, thinking the hyphenated one too complicated. I’d met Orson the year before and he had been very encouraging to me.

‘What about Michael Welles?,’ I asked my mother.

‘What for ?’

‘My stage name.’

My mother pursed her lips, which was a sure sign that something did not sit right with her.

‘I’m not sure that’s such a good idea.’

‘Why not ?’

‘The thing is some people think Orson and I had an affair and that he’s your father.’”

Michael describes his early academic experiences as “unsatisfactory.” Having managed to secure a place at Christ Church, Oxford, he’s said, “If they’d given degrees in ‘London Nightclubs and Meeting Girls,’ I would have done well.”

At the astonishing age of 24, Michael began directing the seminal British Rock/Pop TV show “Ready, Steady, Go!” That exposure led to his directing videos for The Beatles, The Who and, for 15 years, The Rolling Stones. He also directed “The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus,” and The Beatles’ documentary, “Let it Be,” which ends with the classic Concert on the Roof. Michael transitioned to doing television dramas and was nominated for four BAFTA awards, winning as the co-director of the British television series, “Brideshead Revisited.”

Then to the theatre. Michael was nominated for a Tony award for directing “Whose Life is it Anyway,” and his “Agnes of God” ran on Broadway for two years.

Michael also wrote and directed “The Object of Beauty,” starring John Malkovich and Andie MacDowell.

Through it all, Michael has never stopped drawing. “I am incapable of not drawing.” As a child, because he could not read until he was eight, Michael was obsessed with comics strips, his favorites being “Dick Tracy,” “Li’l Abner” and “Prince Valiant,” perhaps attracted to their integration of word and image.

As artist-storyteller, or maybe more accurately, visual director, Michael conjures characters and scenes drawn from the world around him. Literally “drawing” on his imagination, he does not depict real people or scenarios, choosing instead to create his own two-dimensional realities. “The figures in my paintings seem to me like characters in a novel which will never be written.” Michael’s intriguing productions are driven by his attraction to the peculiar, “I find beauty in the imperfect, the crooked tooth in the beguiling smile.”

Exhibitions of Michael’s paintings and drawings have been shown in Los Angeles, London and Paris, and his works reside in many private collections. Currently he paints at his home in Los Angeles, sometimes recalling a question he asked his mother at the age of seven, “Can you prove to me that I’m a child and not an old man dreaming of my past?”

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