Lindgren gained worldwide fame for innovative weaving due to the response to her distinctive installation Aedicule in the 1967 International Biennial of Tapestry in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Lindgren represented Canada abroad many times, and in 2002 was awarded the Queen Elizabeth II's Golden Jubilee Medal.

Lindgren was born in Toronto, Ontario, and received an undergraduate education and learned to weave at the University of Wisconsin, Michigan (B.Sc.)

[3] In 1964, she won a scholarship to the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts in Deer Isle, Maine to work with Jack Lenor Larsen.

[citation needed] Larsen was so impressed by the originality of Lindgren's work that at the end of her time at Haystack, he lent her an 8-harness loom, and told her to go to her new home in Halifax and weave.

Along with black wool chosen for its visual clarity,[12] she might use monkey hair, and lead wire and plastic that reflected currents in 20th century modernism.

[3] In 1965, her exhibitions included solo shows in New York City, at the Confederation Centre Art Gallery in Charlottetown, PEI, and at the University of Manitoba.

Also in 1967 her textile sculpture Aedicule (mohair, wool, synthetic, silk), which invited people to come in and be seated, inspired by a building - a kind of amphitheatre - she had seen in Otaniemi, Finland, designed by architect Alvar Aalto,[3][6] attracted notice at the International Biennial of Tapestry in Lausanne, Switzerland.

[16] In 1998, Ingrid Jenkner for the MSVU Gallery curated the exhibition Charlotte Lindgren: Winter Gardens, 30 of Lindgren's colour photographs resulting from a 1995-96 train journey, during which she photographed private and public gardens at each stop[17] and, in 2014, the MSVU Gallery included her work in Big in Nova Scotia.