Sydney Lee

The first publication devoted to the work of Sydney Lee, this fully illustrated and annotated catalogue raisonné of his prints offers a long overdue appraisal of his contribution to British art. Primarily a painter, Lee was widely acclaimed during his lifetime for his virtuosic prints of landscapes, town scenes and historic buildings, executed in a remarkable variety of sizes and media. From the Colosseum in Rome to the summit of Snowdon and the windmills of Kent, he travelled throughout Britain and Europe in search of subjects both epic and picturesque. A leading authority on printmaking and a committed collector of Lees prints, Robert Meyrick here identifies the precise locations of these subjects, and for the first time establishes an accurate chronology of Lees printed oeuvre. In an accompanying essay Meyrick examines the artists reputation, while placing his work in the context of artistic practice in Britain and beyond.