In 1927, Lindner moved to Berlin and stayed there until 1928, when he returned to Munich to become art director of a publishing firm.

In 1941, Lindner moved to the United States and worked in New York City as an illustrator of books and magazines.

There he made contact with New York artists and German emigrants such as Albert Einstein, Marlene Dietrich, and Saul Steinberg.

His paintings at this time used the sexual symbolism of advertising and investigated definitions of gender roles in the media.

In this metropolitan jungle Lindner created his oeuvre: exciting and powerful images of robot like figures, amazons and heroines, harlequins of self-styled heroes — his artistic panorama of the unruly '60s and '70s of the 20th century" (sic) (Claus Clement quoted in Richard Lindner –Paintings, Works on Paper, Graphic, Nuremberg 2001).