Saturday, 3 August 2013 00:25
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By D.C. Ranatunga
The news that two paintings – ‘Mother and Child’ and ‘Wasanthi’ – done by the distinguished painter George Keyt had been stolen was disturbing to many.
The paintings, valued at Rs. 12 million, were reportedly stolen from the office of John Keells Holdings PLC and are said to have been sold at an auction in England for 35,000 pounds. True, we hear occasionally of museums and art galleries in other countries being broken and items stolen. We had the Colombo Museum robbery sometime back, but I cannot recollect the theft of any paintings done by top level artists.
It was rather coincidental that at the same time that the newspapers reported the court proceedings of the case of the robbery, I was enjoying Kumar de Silva’s ‘Bonsoir Diaries’ where he had a chapter on “...and George Keyt turned 90”.
The Bonsoir program to celebrate the event included an exclusive interview with Keyt himself in addition to getting views of several ‘Keyt loyalists’ on his work. He was to be interviewed at the home of George Keyt Foundation’s Chairman Cedric de Silva.
“He was carefully brought and deposited on a comfortable chair in Cedric and Sita’s sitting room. He was too feeble at 90 but had a vivid memory. We made it quick and did not tire him. Kusum Narayan, his wife of Indian origin, was younger and easy going and spoke with relative ease,” Kumar relates.
Incidentally, it was exactly 20 years ago that George Keyt passed away – on 31 July 1993.
I had the occasion to get involved with an exhibition of George Keyt paintings in 1978 when CTC sponsored it. The exhibition organised by the Kotte Nugegoda Jaycees was held at the Art Gallery and opened by President J.R. Jayewardene.
There were 112 paintings on view most of which had been done in the 1970s; 27 of them were with the tag ‘Not for sale’ and there were 13 owned by individuals also on display. They belonged to Hector Abhayavardhana, Earle P. Swan, PunithamThiruchelvam, Eileen de Mel, Malkanrhi Perera and Cedric de Silva.
CTC also sponsored the initial exhibitions on ‘Nava Kalakaruvo’ organised by the George Keyt Foundation to promote budding artists. ‘George Keyt – A Centennial Anthology’ published by the Foundation with support from CTC in 2001 was a fitting tribute to the distinguished painter. In the foreword, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Foundation, Cedric de S capsuled the painter thus: “George Keyt was an exceptional human being, a man of many interests and accomplishments. He was a painter of international fame since the 1940s, he was a writer on several aspects of life and the arts, he was one of the few poets of stature in Sri Lanka in the last century, and a public speaker of distinction….
“George Percival Sproul Keyt born on 17 April 1901 lived very close to Malwatte Vihare in Kandy and had his schooling at Trinity College but only till he was 16. He was an avid reader. His fund of knowledge over the years was amazing and had a voracious appetite for all types of books and reading material and had the special privilege of using the school library. His fund of knowledge over the years was amazing.
“In his early 20s he was inspired by the scholar monk the Venerable PinnawelaDhiranandaThero and studies at Malwatte Vihare – he nourished himself thoroughly in Buddhist thought and philosophy and immersed himself in Sinhala poetry, temple paintings, and the landscapes and people of the Kandyan country-side and rural areas.” Among the little collection of Keyt material I value are ‘Folk Stories of Sri Lanka’ written by Keyt in 1964, a calendar of George Keyt paintings done in 1993 and an ANZ Grindlays Bank publication on Gotami Vihara murals done by Keyt. I also treasure a copy of the Ceylon Observer Pictorial 1939 from my father’s collection of books, where Keyt had done some beautiful drawings titled ‘10 Reasonable Rhymes (For people of all reasonable ages)’.
Keyt’s life span had almost the whole of the 20th century – born in 1901 he died in 1993.
