Lindsay was born in Creswick. He was the brother of artist Norman Lindsay and artist and critic Daryl Lindsay. He studied at the Melbourne Observatory (1889–1892) and later at the National Gallery School, Melbourne and under George Coates.
Lindsay taught himself etching and engraving in the 1890s while a student, immediately prior to his first trip to Spain and England. On his return to Australia he settled in Sydney as a freelance artist and journalist, contributing to The Bulletin and other magazines and newspapers.
In 1907 he held an exhibition of etchings in Sydney with the Society of Artists. The two decades after 1907 saw him active with the Society of Artists and in 1921, when the Australian Painter-Etchers' Society was formed, Lindsay was its first president. He began to exhibit in London in 1923 and had his most successful exhibition of that period at Colnaghi.
Lindsay became a Trustee of the Art Gallery of New South Wales and was knighted for his services to Australian art in 1941. In 1942 Lindsay published Addled Art, a vituperative and anti-Semitic attack on modernism in art.
