Derwent Lees


Derwent Lees was an Australian landscape painter.

Biography

Derwent Lees was born Desmond Lees in Hobart, Australia, in 1884. His father was a bank manager. He suffered a head injury and lost a foot in a riding accident as a youth, while studying at Melbourne Grammar School in 1899-1900. Afterwards, he wore a wooden prosthetic. Following a brief stay in Paris, he moved to London in 1905 and studied at the Slade School of Fine Art with Henry Tonks and Frederick Brown. He joined its staff in 1908 while still a student, and remained there, on and off, for ten years.
He was a member of the New English Art Club from 1911. The earliest known pencil work of a model is from 1909 while at the Slade school and is held in a private collection in Doreen, Victoria, Australia. He also exhibited at the Goupil Galleries and the Chenil Gallery in Chelsea. His work was shown in the Twentieth Century Art Review Exhibition of 1914 and the Armory Show in New York, where he was the only Australian artist represented.
He was a friend of Augustus John and James Dickson Innes, and spent the period from late 1910 to 1912 with them at a cottage called Nant Ddu in north Wales. He married his wife, Edith Harriet Price, in 1913. Under the name "Lyndra", she was one of Augustus John's former models. In 1912 Innes and Lees went on another painting trip to Collioure in France. This was shortly after the beginning of the Fauvist movement and he is the only Australian artist known to have had any connection with them.
His artistic career was curtailed by a mental health problem, diagnosed as schizophrenia in 1912, which eventually saw him confined to asylums in Surrey from 1918 until his death in 1931 at West Park Hospital, Epsom.

Selected paintings

Works in collections

TitleYearMediumGallery no.GalleryLocation
Lyndra at the Pool1913Oil on wood panel29025National Gallery of AustraliaCanberra, Australia
Four Heads1910Pencil & paperH1979.5Brighton and Hove MuseumsBrighton, England
Landscape at Collioure1910Watercolour & gouache on paperN04241Tate GalleryLondon, England
The Awakening1910Watercolour, pen & ink63973National Gallery of AustraliaCanberra, Australia
Lyndria in Wales1910-14Oil on paper2450Fitzwilliam MuseumCambridge, England
Evening1911Oil on canvas9684Government Art CollectionLondon, England
Girl in a Black Hat1912Oil on wood panel1888-4National Gallery of VictoriaMelbourne, Australia
Metairie des Abeilles1912Oil on woodN05355Tate GalleryLondon, England
Metairie des Abeilles1912Watercolour on paperN05356Tate GalleryLondon, England
Spanish Landscape1912Oil on wood panel29026National Gallery of AustraliaCanberra, Australia
Spanish Landscape1912-14Oil on boardH1990.24Brighton and Hove MuseumsBrighton, England
Lyndra, the Artist's Wife1913Pencil & paper & boardH1981.7Brighton and Hove MuseumsBrighton, England
Lyndra in a Landscape1913Oil on wood panel1821-4National Gallery of VictoriaMelbourne, Australia
Pear Tree in Blossom1913Oil on woodN05021Tate GalleryLondon, England
Lyndra at Tanygrisiau1913-1914Oil on wood panel1957-0014-3Museum of New Zealand Te Papa TongarewaWellington, New Zealand
The Yellow Skirt1914Oil on wood panel127080National Gallery of AustraliaCanberra, Australia
Self Portrait1917EtchingD5046National Portrait GalleryLondon, England
Not titled 1920-29Watercolour, pen & ink, pencil on cardboard57603National Gallery of AustraliaCanberra, Australia
Not titled 1920-29Brush & ink & pencil on paper57591National Gallery of AustraliaCanberra, Australia
Not titled 1920-29Pencil on paper57597National Gallery of AustraliaCanberra, Australia
Not titled 1920-29Pencil, ink & pen on paper57600National Gallery of AustraliaCanberra, Australia
Lady Howard de WaldenPencil on paperFA101413Brighton and Hove MuseumsBrighton, England
Welsh Landscape in WinterOil on wood panel1951.1086Glynn Vivian Art GallerySwansea, Wales