You’d be hardpressed to find someone in Australia who hasn’t heard of the powerhouse that is Darryn Lyons. Based in Melbourne, Australia, Darryn is an entrepreneur, businessman, and public figure.
Before everyone knew his name, Darryn Lyons got his start at 17 as a photographer for Geelong newspaper. He was so dedicated to his work there that he was the first ever local photographer to receive the presitigiou title ‘Best Cadet’ at the national Press awards. Before long, Darryn was working out of London for the Daily Mail, covering revolutions in Czechoslovakia and Romania, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the war in Sarajeo. He went on to win more awards for his work, including Best Press Photographer and Best News Photographer.
It was while working at the Daily Mail in 1992 that Darryn Lyons created his first business. Building it right out of his North London flat, he called it Big Pictures. Eventually, he left Daily Mail to focus on his company and within his first year of operating the business full-time Darryn was able to grow the organization from €300,000 to €1,000,000. Eventually, Big Pictures went international with offices operating in Sydney, Los Angeles, and New York.
The dedication, resilience, and hardworking nature of Darryn Lyons is what earned him a place on Business Review Weekly’s Young Rich List in 2004. Since then, he has only continued to hone his skills and grow his professional prowess. Darryn has created a mulitutude of successful brands, including car companies, television production, clothing labels, and nightclubs.
Today, Darryn Lyons is navigating the art industry. In 2018, he opened the Lyons Gallery, a Contemporary, high end gallery that specializes in Fine Art and Pop Art photography. In recent years the Lyons Gallery has expanded with flagship galleries in Sydney, Darlinghurst, and other locations across Australia. Darryn Lyons has curated visual and audio installations that have never before been seen and thrives on pushing the boundaries of art.
Algongside his passion for fine arts, Darryn Lyons is also big on interior design and architecture.
Learn more about Darryn Lyons and the Lyons Gallery by visiting his website.
Our Interview with Darryn Lyons
Question: What’s the most important thing we should know about you?
Darryn Lyons: That I love building businesses. I particularly love building the Lyons Gallery art business. I love art and love the people I work with that a building this incredible dream.
Question: Name the most impactful lesson you learned from failure.
Darryn Lyons: The most impactful lesson I’ve learned from failure is you can’t do it all yourself so it’s so important to get someone very different to you that runs alongside you.
Question: What accomplishment are you most proud of?
Darryn Lyons: The accomplishment I’m most proud of is building my first business at a very young age called Big Pictures and now building another one called the Lyons Gallery.
Question: Name a tool you use for work that you can’t live without.
Darryn Lyons: My brain.
Question: What is your favorite hobby and why?
Darryn Lyons: I’ve had several hobbies in my lifetime. One that I miss the most that I don’t play anymore is polo. I also love watching sports i.e. cricket and AFL football. Other than that, I don’t have much time for hobbies these days sadly.
Question: What excited you the most about your industry right now?
Darryn Lyons: Many things excite me about the industry that I’m involved in right now. First of all, the visual arts is my passion. I also love giving people the opportunity to make their walls make money through fine art investment.
Question: What concerns you most about your industry right now?
Darryn Lyons: Nothing really concerns me about my industry right now because there are people focused very much on classic investments i.e. stocks, shares, bonds, property, and cryptocurrency. The one thing about art is it’s had incredibly steady growth over the past hundred years and with the record amounts for living artists in the hundreds of millions bracket today, obviously, the future is incredibly bright.
Question: What’s the greatest risk you’ve ever taken?
Darryn Lyons: I’ve taken many risks in my life the greatest risk is always backing yourself in terms of building a business but with risk in success and risk and failure, the fact of the matter remains that it is incredibly stimulating. My life, in general, has always been and always will be a rollercoaster, whether I like it or not but I love the adrenaline pump of risk involved in your own judgment and your own success backing it.
Question: Name one small habit that positively impacts your productivity.
Darryn Lyons: The most important thing I do for my own health every day is 30 minutes with a personal trainer in the morning and also trying to sneak in a decent 30 minute walk every day. It clears the mind and I feel a healthy body is a healthy brain.
Question: What tips do you have for getting a seat at the table?
Darryn Lyons: This is a really easy question, it’s not what you know it’s who you know.
Question: What book has made the biggest impact on your life?
Darryn Lyons: The book that had the biggest impact on my life is Mr. Paparazzi, the world’s most outrageous celebrity photographer by Darryn Lyons. That’s because it is my life, you should all go and read it.
Question: Do you value intelligence or common sense more? Why?
Darryn Lyons: I personally value intelligence and I love being surrounded by intelligent people the one thing I hate is working in a room with imbeciles.
Question: What would you consider to be the perfect day?Darryn Lyons: A good night’s sleep, waking up to amazing sex, going for a fitness workout with my trainer, getting to work selling an incredibly huge amount of art, coming home having a glass of pinot noir, then either cooking an amazing meal or going out to Jungle Fowl in Port Douglas.
