Derwent Lees

Self-portrait

Derwent Lees (14 November 1884 – 24 March 1931) was an Australian landscape painter.

Biography

Derwent Lees was born in Hobart, Australia, in November 1884. His father was general manager of the Union Bank of Australia. He studied at Melbourne Grammar School in 1899–1900, [1] 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, he commenced his studies at the Slade School of Fine Art under the supervision of Henry Tonks and Frederick Brown. He joined its staff in late 1907 while still a student, and remained there for ten years.

He was a member of the New English Art Club from 1911. His earliest known works are pencil drawings done in 1907 while at the Slade School of Art. These remain held by the UCL Art Museum. He regularly exhibited at the Goupil Galleries and the Chenil Gallery in Chelsea and with the Friday Club. His work was shown in the 1914 Twentieth Century Art Review Exhibition and the Armory Show in New York.[2]

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 in 1914 with Augustus John. He married his wife, Edith Harriet Price (1890-1984) in 1913. Under the name "Lyndra", she was one of Augustus John's former models. In 1910 Lees, accompanied by Innes and another colleague went on a painting trip to Collioure in France.[3] This was five years after the fervour of the Fauvist movement. He returned to southern France another three times prior to WWI.

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.[4]

Selected paintings

Works in collections

Title Year Medium Gallery no. Gallery Location
Lyndra at the Pool 1913 Oil on wood panel 29025 National Gallery of Australia Canberra, Australia
Four Heads 1910 Pencil & paper H1979.5 Brighton and Hove Museums Brighton, England
Landscape at Collioure 1910 Watercolour & gouache on paper N04241 Tate Gallery London, England
The Awakening 1910 Watercolour, pen & ink 63973 National Gallery of Australia Canberra, Australia
Lyndria in Wales 1910-14 Oil on paper 2450 Fitzwilliam Museum Cambridge, England
Evening 1911 Oil on canvas 9684 Government Art Collection London, England
Girl in a Black Hat 1912 Oil on wood panel 1888-4 National Gallery of Victoria Melbourne, Australia
Metairie des Abeilles 1912 Oil on wood N05355 Tate Gallery[5] London, England
Metairie des Abeilles 1912 Watercolour on paper N05356 Tate Gallery London, England
Spanish Landscape 1912 Oil on wood panel 29026 National Gallery of Australia Canberra, Australia
Spanish Landscape 1912-14 Oil on board H1990.24 Brighton and Hove Museums Brighton, England
Lyndra, the Artist's Wife 1913 Pencil & paper & board H1981.7 Brighton and Hove Museums Brighton, England
Lyndra in a Landscape 1913 Oil on wood panel 1821-4 National Gallery of Victoria Melbourne, Australia
Pear Tree in Blossom 1913 Oil on wood N05021 Tate Gallery London, England
Lyndra at Tanygrisiau 1913-1914(?) Oil on wood panel 1957-0014-3 Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa Wellington, New Zealand
The Yellow Skirt 1914 Oil on wood panel 127080 National Gallery of Australia Canberra, Australia
Self Portrait 1917 Etching D5046 National Portrait Gallery London, England
Not titled [Eve holding the apple] 1920-29 Watercolour, pen & ink, pencil on cardboard 57603 National Gallery of Australia Canberra, Australia
Not titled [Portrait study: Woman with head turned to the right] 1920-29 Brush & ink & pencil on paper 57591 National Gallery of Australia Canberra, Australia
Not titled [Profile portrait of a woman] 1920-29 Pencil on paper 57597 National Gallery of Australia Canberra, Australia
Not titled [Woman reading] 1920-29 Pencil, ink & pen on paper 57600 National Gallery of Australia Canberra, Australia
Lady Howard de Walden Pencil on paper FA101413 Brighton and Hove Museums Brighton, England
Welsh Landscape in Winter Oil on wood panel 1951.1086 Glynn Vivian Art Gallery Swansea, Wales

References

  1. ^ 29 artworks by or after Derwent Lees, Art UK: see extended Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists biography, under "artist profile". Retrieved 13 June 2016.
  2. ^ Giles Auty, "Exuberance truncated", Weekend Australian, 19–20 July 1997, p. 12
  3. ^ "Carrick Hill". Archived from the original on 22 August 2011. Retrieved 25 June 2011.
  4. ^ Kerry Gardner (2021) 'Australia at the Venice Biennale: A Century of Contemporary Art' The Migunyah Press, ISBN 978-0-522-87736-6
  5. ^ Tate Collection: Derwent Lees

Further reading

  • Derwent Lees, "Drawings", The Blue Review, Vol. I No. I (May, 1913).
  • Alleyne Zander, "Derwent Lees", Art in Australia, series 3, no. 48, Feb 1933.
  • 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.
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