Painter, sculptor and illustrator, born in Greenock, Renfrewshire, his parents having Ulster origins. They moved there when he was still small. He attended the Model School in Belfast, spent a short time at Belfast School of Art and in his mid-twenties, without adequate resources, embarked on a trip through Europe and was later said to have studied art in London and Paris. In Belfast did a variety of jobs such as building and signwriting to support self and family. Exhibited at RHA, RUA and at Belfast Museum and Art Gallery. Magee’s Gallery gave him a solo show in 1939, CEMA in 1952. Among books illustrated by Lynas was Why, published in 1935. Ulster Museum holds his self-portrait. The Ulster critic John Hewitt remembered Lynas as “that diminutive rowdy … forever creating a scene and stumping out in a temper” at exhibitions, “his few pictures in conté crayon the aborted sprouts of his vast imaginings.

Text source: 'Artists in Britain Since 1945' by David Buckman (Art Dictionaries Ltd, part of Sansom & Company)


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