Derwent Lees

Places of work recorded in the authority are Great Britain, France and Poland. Work by Derwent Lees is recorded in the collections of National Gallery of Victoria, Tate, National Gallery of Canada, Te Whare O Rehua Sarjeant Gallery and Art Gallery of New South Wales.

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. 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. 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.

Derwent Lees is recorded with the occupation art educator. Recorded as painter, art educator and draftsperson.

• Title — Year — Medium — Gallery no. — Catalogue Raisonné no. — Gallery — Location • Portrait of J. R. Fothergill, Esq. — 1907 — Red chalk on paper — LDUCS-6016 — DL07.26 — University College London Art Museum — London, England • Portrait of a Girl with Long Hair — 1909 — Pencil on paper — 2:0413 — DL09.27 — Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art — Brisbane, Australia • Landscape at Collioure — 1910 — Watercolour & gouache on paper — N04241 — DL10.16 — Tate Gallery — London, England • Snow on Welsh Mountains a.k.a. Welsh Landscape in Winter — c.1911 — Oil on wood panel — 1951.1086 — DL11.2 — Glynn Vivian Art Gallery — Swansea, Wales • Evening — 1911 — Oil on canvas — 9684 — DL11.6 — Government Art Collection — London, England • Essil Elmslie Reading a.k.a. Woman reading — 1911 — Pencil, ink & pen on paper — 79.1516 — DL11.52 — National Gallery of Australia — Canberra, Australia • Mas Reig, Banyuls a.k.a. Spanish Landscape — 1912 — Oil on wood panel — 76.359 — DL12.24 — National Gallery of Australia — Canberra, Australia • Métairie des Abeilles — 1912 — Oil on wood — N05355 — DL12.26 — Tate Gallery — London, England • The Round Hill, Banyales a.k.a. Spanish Landscape — 1912 — Oil on board — H1990.24 — DL12.32 — Brighton and Hove Museums — Brighton, England • Pear Tree in Blossom — 1913 — Oil on wood — N05021 — DL13.6 — Tate Gallery — London, England • Portrait of Lyndra, the Artist's Wife — 1913 — Pencil & paper & board — H1981.7 — DL13.23 — Brighton and Hove Museums — Brighton, England • Lyndra in a Landscape — 1913 — Oil on wood panel — 1821-4 — DL13.33 — National Gallery of Victoria — Melbourne, Australia • Lyndra at the Pool — 1913 — Oil on wood panel — 76.358 — DL13.36 — National Gallery of Australia — Canberra, Australia • The Blue Pool a.k.a. Reflections in Water — 1913 — Oil on wood panel — 1930.77 — DL13.45 — Manchester Art Gallery — Manchester, England • Tan-Y-Bwlch a.k.a. The Yellow Skirt — 1914 — Oil on wood panel — 127080 — DL14.34 — Carrick Hill — Adelaide, Australia • Lyndra by the Pool — 1914 — Oil on wood panel — 1937.731 — DL14.36 — Manchester Art Gallery — Manchester, England • Girl in a Black Hat — 1914 — Oil on wood panel — 1888-4 — DL14.41 — National Gallery of Victoria — Melbourne, Australia • Lyndra in Wales — 1914 — Oil on paper — 2450 — DL14.44 — Fitzwilliam Museum — Cambridge, England • Not titled [Portrait study: Woman with head turned to the right] — 1915-1918 — Brush & ink & pencil on paper — 79.15153 — DL15.4 — National Gallery of Australia — Canberra, Australia • Self Portrait — 1919 — Etching — D5046 — DL19.1 — National Portrait Gallery — London, England