Biographies

Derwent Lees (1885 – 1931) He was born in Melbourne, Australia, where an injury while riding left him lame. Educated in Melbourne and Paris, he came to London in 1905 and studied at the Slade under and , teaching drawing there himself from 1908 to 1918. He became a member of the New English Art Club and exhibited with them from 1911 on. He also had a painting in the New York Armory Show in 1913, lent by John Quinn.Unfortunately, he was not stable mentally. Marriage to Edith Bryce, known as Lyndra, whom he met through , apparently had a calming effect on him, but, even so, he spent the last thirteen years of his life in a mental institution. Brown Tonks Augustus John