Ben Uri Research Unit

Born: 1884 Hobart, Tasmania, Australia

Died: 1931 Epsom, England

Year of Migration to the UK: 1905

Biography

Artist Derwent Lees was born in Hobart, Tasmania, Australia on 14 November 1884, the tenth child of William Lees, originally from Leominster, England, where he had been general manager of Australia’s Union Bank. During his childhood, Lees lived in Brisbane, Melbourne, and Sydney. He wore a wooden prosthesis because, while he was a student at Melbourne Grammar School between 1899 and 1900, he had a riding accident that resulted in a head injury and the amputation of his foot. In his early twenties, in a trip organised by his father, Lees travelled to Europe, briefly staying in Paris and Italy.

In 1905, he immigrated to London and enrolled at the Slade School of Fine Art, where he quickly become a successful student whose work regularly received prizes. While still a student in 1908, Lees became the Assistant Drawing Master and taught there until 1918. His earliest pencil work dates to his Slade days in 1909 (private collection, Australia). At the Slade, he met Cyril Butler of Bourton House, the founder of the British Contemporary Art Society. Both the Society and Butler purchased Lees’ work. In 1911, Lees became a member of the New English Art Club (NEAC) which was established as an exhibiting alternative to the Royal Academy of Arts, with annual shows at the Mall Galleries. Lees was also friends with the Welsh painters Augustus John and James Dickson Innes. Between 1910 and 1912, the trio spent time painting together in Nant Ddu, a cottage in North Wales, where they became known as the Arenig School of Painters. At the end of their stay in 1912, Lees and Innes continued their painting trip in Collioure, France, where they connected with early Fauvism. Between 1912 and 1914, Lees travelled widely across Europe (Belgium, France, Germany, Italy) and Russia. While at the Slade, he also met Philip Wilson Steer, who later arranged for Lees to stay at Bourton House in 1916 as part of an artist's residency.

Lees’ oeuvre primarily consists of lyrical landscapes, urban scenes, and figurative paintings, on canvas or small wooden panels. He is often described as a genius copycat or Australia's Vincent van Gogh. His landscapes and figures are both characterised by simplicity and clarity of form, sometimes suggesting a decorative quality. His broad and gestural brushstrokes contribute to a sense of movement and dynamism within his compositions, yet a prevailing calmness remains. His colour palette often combines vivid hues with subdued tones, always staying within naturalistic ranges that invite introspection. Nevertheless, Lees took much inspiration from Post-Impressionism, particularly in his departure from strict realism and the embracing of expressive colour and form. Although his surfaces are often flat and the forms simplified, they ultimately lack the true exuberance of Fauvism, while avoiding the Cubist abstract deconstruction that was popular at the time. His pencil drawings, on the other hand, exhibit a tendency towards realism and precision, even as moments of post-Impressionist freedom are retained.

Lees participated in several important exhibitions during his lifetime. In 1913, his work was exhibited in the now iconic Armory Show (also known as the International Exhibition of Modern Art) held at the 69th Regiment Armory in New York, USA, where he was the only Australian artist. The following year, his work was included in the groundbreaking exhibition, Twentieth Century Art: A Review of Modern Movements at London’s Whitechapel Art Gallery. In 1916, seven of his paintings featured in the 56th New English Art Club Exhibition and, throughout his career, he often exhibited with Vanessa Bell’s Friday Club. Though Lees was fully integrated into the progressive British art world, one of the most significant moments of recognition came posthumously, when his painting Dorset Scene was included in the British Pavilion at the 1936 Venice Biennale.

Throughout his life, Lees struggled with mental health issues that disrupted his art career. (His fellow painter, Innes, also suffered from mental illness). In 1912, Lees experienced visual hallucinations and was diagnosed with schizophrenia. The following year, he married Edith Harriet Price, once John's model, who went by the name Lyndra. Lees managed to live with the diagnosis until the end of the First World War, when he was confined to various asylums in Surrey, first at Claybury Mental Hospital and later at West Park Hospital in Epsom, where he remained until his death. One of his last paintings was The Drive to the Netherne Asylum (1919) and his creative practice effectively ended after institutionalisation. Derwent Lees died in West Park Hospital, Epsom, England on 24 March 1931. In the UK public domain, his works are held in the collections of Tate, Ashmolean, Manchester Art Gallery, and the Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, among others.

Related books

Michael Holroyd, Augustus John: The New Biography (New York: Head of Zeus, 2015)
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press: 2004)
Henry R. Lew, In Search of Derwent Lees (North Caulfield: Henry R. Lew, 1996)
James Merlin, ‘Derwent Lees’, London Magazine; London Vol. 31, No. 11, 1 February 1992, p. 47.
Eric Rowan, Some miraculous promised land: J. D. Innes, Augustus John and Derwent Lees in North Wales 1910–13 (Llandudno: Mostyn Art Gallery, 1982)
Derwent Lees, exh. cat. (London: Redfern Gallery, 1930)

Public collections

Related organisations

Friday Club (exhibitor)
New English Art Club (student )
Slade School of Fine Art (student and teacher )

Selected exhibitions

Augustus John, James Dickson Innes and Derwent Lees (trio exhibition), Redfern Gallery, London (1939)
Exhibition of Water Colours (group show), Winchester Art Club, Winchester (1937)
British Pavilion (group exhibition), Venice Biennale, Venice (1936)
Derwent Lees (solo exhibition), Redfern Gallery, London (1930)
Exhibition of Modern Pictures by the New English Art Club (group show), Mall Galleries, London (1907, 1909 summer and winter, 1910 summer and winter, 1911, 1913, 1914 summer and winter, 1915 summer and winter, 1916)
Twentieth Century Art: A Review of Modern Movements (group show), Whitechapel Art Gallery, London (1914)
Armory Show/International Exhibition of Modern Art (group show), Copley Hall, Boston (1913)
Armory Show/International Exhibition of Modern Art (group show), The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago (1913)
Armory Show/International Exhibition of Modern Art (group show), 69th Regiment Armory, New York (1913)
Vanessa Bell’s Friday Club Exhibition (group show), Mansard Gallery/Alpine Club Galleries, London (unconfirmed years throughout 1910s)

Ben Uri archive

Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Derwent Lees ]