Old Masters

During the 1930s a loose constellation of pioneering modern artists in Colombo orbited around the photographer Lionel Wendt, the painter George Keyt and the artist/patron Harry Pieris. In 1943 this finally coalesced into what came to be known as the ’43 Group. Over recent years Anjalendran has managed to assemble a collection of works by several members of the group. It had no obvious successors, and few new artists of any stature appeared during the years immediately after independence. Exceptions were the sculptor Tissa Ranasinghe and the painter Ranil Deraniyagala.

Ivan Peries, one of the main instigators of the ’43 Group, was born in Dehiwala in 1921 but spent his latter years in Britain where he died in 1988. In exile he continued to paint dreamlike images of Sri Lanka and its people.

Justin Pieris Daraniyagala studied at Cambridge and the London Slade School during the 1920s. His expressionist manner fused elements of modernism with a Sri Lankan vision.

Ranil Deraniyagala first studied medicine in London before taking up painting. After 1965 he divided his time between his ancestral home at Eknelligoda and a remote country village above Ratnapura where he tragically ended his life in 1978.

Richard Gabriel, the least academic of the ’43 Group, is a devout Catholic and has painted mainly religious subjects, including murals in a number of Colombo churches. His style is unpretentious and imbued with a naïf simplicity.

Tissa Ranasinghe is Sri Lanka’s pre-eminent contemporary sculptor whose exquisite small bronze casts offer a sequel to Hindu and Buddhist casting traditions.

Clockwise from top left
Works by Justin Pieris Daraniyagala; Richard Gabriel; Ivan Peries; Ranil Deraniyagala; Tissa Ranasinghe, Ivan Peries; Tissa Ranasinghe; Richard Gabriel; Ivan Peries

The upper verandahs of the Rijesberman House