Derwent Lees (14 November 1884 – 28 March 1931) was an Australian draughtsman, landscape and figure painter.
Biography Derwent Lees was born in Hobart, Australia, in November 1884, the youngest of ten children. His father was general manager of the Union Bank of Australia. He studied at Melbourne Grammar School in 1899–1900, and later lost a foot in a riding accident, subsequently wearing a wooden prosthetic foot. He moved to London in 1905 and, following a brief stay in Paris, commenced his studies at the Slade School of Fine Art under the supervision of Henry Tonks and Frederick Brown. While still a student, he was invited to join the Slade staff in late 1907, a position he held for ten years.
His earliest known works are pencil drawings created in c.1907 while at the Slade School. These remain held by the Art Museum of University College London. He regularly exhibited in London at many galleries, including the Goupil Galleries and the Chenil Gallery in Chelsea, and with Vanessa Bell’s Friday Club where he was a founding member, was invited to become a member of the New English Art Club in 1911, and in 1913 had works shown at the renowned Armory Show (the first International Exhibition of Modern Art) in New York, Boston and Chicago.Catalogue of International Exhibition of Modern Art, at the Armory of the Sixty-Ninth Infantry, Feb 15 to March 15, 1913. Association of American Painters and Sculptors, 1913.
He was a friend of Augustus John and James Dickson Innes and from late 1910 to 1913, painted with them in north Wales, then again with Augustus John in 1914. In 1910, accompanied by Innes and another Slade colleague, Lees went on a painting trip to Collioure in France. He returned to southern France another three times prior to WWI, developing a distinctive highly coloured style following the influence of the post-impressionists.
Lees married his model-muse, Edith Harriet Price (1890-1984), in the summer of 1913. Under the artist-model pseudonym "Lyndra", she was one of Lees's and Augustus John's principal pre-WWI models.
His artistic career was curtailed by poverty and subsequent mental health problems, which saw him confined to asylums, initially in 1918, then permanently from 1919 until his death in 1931 at West Park Hospital, Epsom.
In 1936 his work 'Dorset Scene' was exhibited posthumously at the Venice Biennale, probably by his widow, as Great Britain did not contribute any works that year due to political tensions.Kerry Gardner (2021) 'Australia at the Venice Biennale: A Century of Contemporary Art' The Migunyah Press,
His works are held in more than 50 public institutions across eight countries in :
the USA at the Yale Center for British Art, the Chicago Institute of Art and the Rhode Island School of Design; the major galleries of the Midlands and North of England, and all of London’s major galleries including the Tate, the V&A, the British Museum and the National Portrait Gallery; the National Galleries of Canada, Wales, New Zealand and Australia, among other major public Australian and South African galleries.
The 2025 catalogue raisonné of Lees's oeuvre details over 450 works, nearly all produced in 12 intense creative years.
Selected paintings
Selected Works in Collections TitleYearMediumGallery no.Catalogue Raisonné no.GalleryLocationPortrait of J. R. Fothergill, Esq.1907Red chalk on paperLDUCS-6016DL07.26University College London Art MuseumLondon, EnglandPortrait of a Girl with Long Hair1909Pencil on paper2:0413DL09.27Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern ArtBrisbane, Australia Landscape at Collioure 1910 Watercolour & gouache on paper N04241DL10.16 Tate Gallery London, EnglandSnow on Welsh Mountains a.k.a. Welsh Landscape in Winterc.1911Oil on wood panel1951.1086DL11.2Glynn Vivian Art GallerySwansea, Wales Evening 1911 Oil on canvas 9684DL11.6 Government Art Collection London, EnglandEssil Elmslie Reading a.k.a. Woman reading1911Pencil, ink & pen on paper79.1516DL11.52National Gallery of AustraliaCanberra, Australia Mas Reig, Banyuls a.k.a. Spanish Landscape 1912 Oil on wood panel 76.359DL12.24 National Gallery of Australia Canberra, Australia Métairie des Abeilles 1912 Oil on wood N05355DL12.26 Tate GalleryTate Collection: Derwent Lees London, EnglandThe Round Hill, Banyales a.k.a. Spanish Landscape1912Oil on boardH1990.24DL12.32Brighton and Hove MuseumsBrighton, England Pear Tree in Blossom 1913 Oil on wood N05021DL13.6 Tate Gallery London, England Portrait of Lyndra, the Artist's Wife 1913 Pencil & paper & board H1981.7DL13.23 Brighton and Hove Museums Brighton, England Lyndra in a Landscape 1913 Oil on wood panel 1821-4DL13.33 National Gallery of Victoria Melbourne, Australia Lyndra at the Pool 1913 Oil on wood panel 76.358DL13.36 National Gallery of Australia Canberra, Australia The Blue Pool a.k.a. Reflections in Water 1913 Oil on wood panel 1930.77DL13.45 Manchester Art Gallery Manchester, EnglandTan-Y-Bwlch a.k.a. The Yellow Skirt1914Oil on wood panel127080DL14.34Carrick HillAdelaide, Australia Lyndra by the Pool 1914 Oil on wood panel 1937.731DL14.36 Manchester Art Gallery Manchester, England Girl in a Black Hat 1914 Oil on wood panel 1888-4DL14.41 National Gallery of Victoria Melbourne, Australia Lyndra in Wales 1914 Oil on paper 2450DL14.44 Fitzwilliam Museum Cambridge, England Not titled [Portrait study: Woman with head turned to the right] 1915-1918 Brush & ink & pencil on paper 79.15153DL15.4 National Gallery of Australia Canberra, Australia Self Portrait 1919 Etching D5046DL19.1 National Portrait Gallery London, England
References
Further reading Davies, Lynn, Derwent Lees : art and life. Lund Humphries, London, 2005,
Derwent Lees, Drawings, The Blue Review, Vol. I no. I, May, 1913.
Eric Rowan, Some miraculous promised land: J. D. Innes, Augustus John and Derwent Lees in North Wales 1910–13, Llandudno: Mostyn Art Gallery, 1982.
Merlin James, Derwent Lees, The London Magazine, Feb/Mar 1992.
Klein, Juliette and Davies, Lynn, Derwent Lees, une lumière australienne à découvrir, L'Independant Banyuls sur Mer, Dec 2025.
Holroyd, Michael, Augustus John : The New Biography, Bloomsbury Publishing, London, 2015,
Lew, Henry R, In Search of Derwent Lees, self-published, 1996, .
Lew, Henry R, Imaging the World, Ch, 12 Derwent Lees, Hybrid Publishers 2018, , pps 172-216.
Lew, Henry R, Australian Genesis and Exodus: the stories of Derwent Lees and Horace Brodzky - their lives, their families, and their in-common friends and acquaintances, Hybrid Publishers 2023, .
Zander, Alleyne, Derwent Lees, Art in Australia, series 3, no. 48, Feb 1933.
External links
More works by Lees @ ArtNet Derwent Lees @ Epsom and Ewell History Explorer