Features
ARTRA Magazine features the ’43 Group
The latest issue of ARTRA, celebrating its tenth anniversary, has more illustrations than text: wonderful reproductions of our artists ranging from the naturalistic to cubist, to abstract, interspersed with cartoons; all from the Sapumal Foundation. A double page notes significant dates of the local art world: 1930 and ’36 –
Text material consists of Beyond a Revolt & Basked in the Instinctual by Azara Jaleel in three parts: Career developments in the early 1900s, Historical overview of Sri Lankan art and About the artists and their artistic styles. Excerpts from interviews include Cresside Collete (daughter of Aubrey) writing about her Father Figure; Kemal de Soysa titling his short piece True to a fault; T Shanthanan – Timeless cosmopolitans; Michael Anthonisz – Provenance and its importance; Rita Manella – Rekindling Sri Lanka’s rapture; and Rohan de Soya – Art & living / the beauty herein.
Azara Jaleel begins her Editorial thus: “The ’43 Group may be bygone, but the seeds they sowed of new thought and form shaped the beginnings of Sri Lanka’s Modern & Contemporary Art. Thus we take great pride in publishing this important edition in celebration of ARTRA Magazine’s decennium, paying homage to this historic movement.”
The ’43 Group
It was the first 20th century modern art school established in Colombo in 1943. The Group was an association of like–minded artists who had originally been in the Ceylon Society of Arts. The breaking away and formation of a new collective was initiated by Lionel Wendt and had nine artists as key members: Geoffrey Beling (1907-1992), George Claessen (1909-1999), Aubrey Collette , Justin Daraniyagala (1903-1967), Richard Gabriel (1924-2016), George Keyt (1901 1993), Ivan Peries (1924-88), Harry Pieris (1904-88), and Manjusri Thera (1902-1982). They drew influence from Charles Freegrove Winzer who had been Keyt’s and Beling’s teacher. Referencing the name I retrieved the following info. Winzer (1886-1940) was a British painter and lithographer who lived in Paris and was held prisoner in Germany during WWI. He returned to Vienna, then held the post of Chief Inspector of Art in Ceylon and was widely regarded as a leading light in modern art to Ceylonese artists.
The reference adds: “The painting of the Group constituted a historic break in Sri Lankan and more generally, South Asian tradition. The most significant achievement of the ’43 Group is accepted to be their localization of European modernist trends to a distinctively Sri Lankan modernist art.” The Group extended its patronage to films (Lester James Peiris became an associate) and Kandyan and other local dance forms.
Some of the Group
All Sri Lankans know of and about George Keyt and Lionel Wendt. I was familiar with the names of others and knew a few details of each of them, but read up and feel it apt to pass on information gathered on the members who particularly interested me.
Lionel George Henricus Wendt
was pianist, photographer, filmmaker and critic. It was he who was the leader of the ’43 Group and gave it a home, which later was developed to the Lionel Wendt Art Centre with its theatre, exhibition hall and club. His collection of over 400 photographs is the nucleus of his vast art legacy to the country. It was a tragedy and great loss to the country and art that he died at age 44.
Geoffrey Beling.
We in our Kandy school had heard of him as visits by him as Inspector of Art were threatened in my time in the primary school. One sister was praised by him and I think he particularly praised Nalini Wijenaike, mother of Senaka Senanayaka.
Beling was born in Gampola in 1907 to watercolorist father and music teacher mother. In 1926 he went to India to study architecture and art at Bombay’s Sir Jamsetjee Jeejebbhoy School of Art. Two years later he returned due to his father’s death and opened a private art school in Havelock Town and also started exhibiting his work at the Art Club arranged by Charles Freegrove Winzer. Critics considered his art ‘ridiculous and degrading’ but Pablo Neruda, who lived some years in Colombo, thought he was a true artist, rare in Ceylon, and one of the two best. He painted mainly landscapes, still life and portraits.
In 1932, Beling succeeded Winzer as Chief Inspector of Art. and held the post till 1967. Unfortunately he stopped painting around 1945. He married Edith Deutrom and they had four children. One significant fact is that he prepared the original designs of the Lionel Wendt Memorial Arts complex on Guildford Crescent, Colombo 7.
George Claessen
was both artist and poet. His art was characterized by his mystical beliefs and ideas. Born in Colombo in 1909, he was largely a self-taught artist and began painting professionally when, aged 29, he joined the Colombo Port Commission as a draughtsman. He favoured modern European artistic forms over traditional Sri Lankan art. He had a painting displayed in the London National Gallery acquired during WW II by the War Artists’ Advisory Committee. Moving to abstract art, he exhibited his work in many galleries, among them in Melbourne in 1947, in London many times with the Royal Society of British Artists and the Society of Graphic Art and in the Venice Biennale in 1956. Throughout his life he continued working at the Colombo Port Commission and in addition to art, published several volumes of poetry.
L Thomas Peiris Manjusri is to me the most intriguing of founders of the ’43 Group because of the vast changes, even adventures, he made for himself. Born in near poverty in a fishing village in Aluthgama in 1902, he died in 1982, a celebrated, world known Sri Lankan. “His story is a commentary on the cultural history of 20th century Ceylon/ Sri Lanka.”
Manjusri ran away from school and home when 11 years old with the said intention of discovering the world. He first apprenticed himself to a carpenter, then was assistant to a ballad singer uncle. Maybe he travelled around as ballad singers provided entertainment to villages with their viridu singing accompanied by hand held rabana and tambourine. He then became a shop assistant in Beruwela.
He joined the Sangha when 13 and under reputed scholar monks in the Mangala Pirivena, Beruwela; studied Buddhist philosophy along with Sinhala Literature, Sanskrit, Pali and Bengali. In 1932 he joined Rabindranath Tagore’s Santineketan Ashram.
However, had to return in two years when his father died. Thus began his life’s work of systematically copying, tracing and documenting drawings and friezes of old Buddhist temples. Living often in Colombo, he inspired the association of young artists. Thus his being a founder member of the ’43 Group. He visited Vienna and London during this period.
In 1950 aged 48, he disrobed and gave full attention to art and writing on art in South and SE Asia. Married late in life, with the help of wife Mangala, he researched and published in 1975 Design Elements from Sri Lankan Temple Paintings. Many were the awards he won, plaudits and honours for his art, preservation of ancient and medieval Lankan art and his writing. The highest of these was the 1979 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Journalism. ATRA Magazine has done Sri Lanka and the entire art world a favour by showing the disparate works of these artists in one issue in which we can see the diversity of their work and depth of talent. It is obvious that they did not copy from each other, but inspired each other to develop their individual identity and style.