George Keyt (Sri Lanka, 1901 - 1993)


Triptych 1929 made up of three panelsRight hand panel signed 'G Keyt' and dated 1929 lower rightOil on canvas172 x 76cm (67 11/16 x 29 15/16in).
|Provenance:Private Collection, UK;Acquired from Harold Peiris in 1981.FOUR IMPORTANT WORKS BY GEORGE KEYTBonhams is proud to present four rare and exquisite works by the acclaimed Sri Lankan modernist George Keyt. These four pieces chart the eclectic stylistic periods of George Keyt, from his earliest pastoral works to his more abstracted cubist pieces. Never before has such a desirable and complete collection works by this celebrated artist been offered at auction. "Keyt I think is the living nucleus of a great painter. In all his works, there is the moderation of maturity. [His] figures take on a strange expressive grandeur, and radiate an aura of intensely profound feeling." (W.G. Archer, India and Modern Art, London, 1959, p. 124)GEORGE KEYT – THE ARTISTBorn in 1901, George Keyt, a Burgher of Eurasian descent, grew up in Sri Lanka and hailed from an affluent family. He attended the English public school styled, Trinity College in the hill station town of Kandy. Ceylon, as it was then known, was a British crown colony. In 1919 his anti authoritarian behaviour led to him leaving school and instead studying at home. Keyt's teachers saw beyond his disruptive nature and noted a curious and astute intelligence. Initially his interests as a young man lay in literature, and poetry with a keenness for Shakespeare. For a short period Keyt worked for a firm of photographers, manually enhancing the negatives with a brush. It was here that his friend, photographer Lionel Wendt, noticed Keyt's skill and encouraged him to explore art. In 1927, at the relatively late age of 26, Keyt devoted himself to art over other endeavours. Keyt undertook a brief course on painting with the painter George de Niese and was also influenced heavily by C.F. Winzer, the Ceylon Government's inspector of art in schools who was also a painter. Winzer rejected the naturalistic styles of painting favoured by art teaching, emulating the Western Victorian and Edwardian traditions and his encouragement to deviate from this proved to be greatly influential upon Keyt. George Keyt's works from the earlier period were often figurative with pastoral subject matter. There is a Gauguin style quality to his renditions of village life. The subjects continue to perform innocuous tasks such as shopping in a market, sitting amongst each other and selling fish. Yashodhara Dalmia notes of his early work that 'It is as if action has been frozen to allow for a momentary scanning of the lives of the common folk.' (Y. Dalmia, Buddha to Krishna: Life and Times of George Keyt , Taylor and Francis, 2016, p.12). The figures are still but contemplative not inanimate, there is a complexity in their stillness. This rare triptych work has an observational quality, the figures have a deep resonance in their emotions whilst conducting seemingly monotonous daily tasks. The subjects of these paintings were posed in an almost Hellenistic fashion - tall, voluptuous figures enrobed in fabric. Pensive seated figures nude or semi nude would be placed against a luscious and vibrant backdrops.Keyt marries modern European practises with ancient South Asian fresco techniques found at Ajanta and Sirgirya [Image 1]. Despite his clear interest in western art principles, Keyt's subject matter was largely rooted in local tradition, depicting vernacular buildings and scenery, villagers, dancers, tradesmen and gods often drawn from Hindu and Buddhist mythology. Keyt's interest in Hindu iconography and Indian literature led to him having close links with the cultural life of India, where he lived for long and short periods from 1939 right up to the late 1970s. THE 43 GROUPIn 1943, George Keyt and other artists at the time formed the aptly named '43 Group'. The photographer, Lionel Wendt, was considered the patron of the group which included Harry Peiris, Justin Deraniyagala, Ivan Peries, Richard Gabriel, Aubrey Collette, L. T. P. Manjusri, W. J. G. Beling and George Claessen. 1943 was a revolutionary and political tumultuous time in Sri Lanka. Five years later the British were overthrown and a new, albeit fractious, independent state was established. The group did not have any particular stylistic crossover but instead shared a commitment to free expression, inspired by European modernism of the 20th century to depict Sri Lankan subject matter in an unconventional way to the norm. The group would meet at Lionel Wendt's house in salon style meetings. The group exhibited at the 1955 Venice Biennale, where they were championed as a radical example of modern Asian art. As the political climate worsened in 1960s Sri Lanka, the group disbanded and many members emigrated."The lyric painting of George Keyt is sensuous Indian poetry brought to canvas. Like earlier Indian painters of Rajasthan and the Punjab Hills, and M. F. Husain after him, Keyt takes as his primary theme woman as the focus of man's concern. He paints her in flat planes, with bounding lines and rich warmth of color. His idiom occasionally carries in it a hint of Picasso but is, once again, in direct line with the traditional styles of Central India, Mewar, and Basohli. But the originality of Keyt's inspiration is undoubted, and his work remains uniquely his own." (R. Bartholomew and S. S. Kapur, Husain, Abrams, New York, 1972, p. 27)STYLISTIC PROGRESSIONThese four exceptional works chart the changing styles and development of George Keyt as an artist. Keyt perpetually re-invented his aesthetic, adopting and discarding countless subtle variations in style across his seven decade career.Throughout his lifetime, Keyt's work was exhibited alongside leading European artists in galleries around the world. Most notably, in 1930, he exhibited alongside Picasso and Braque at the Zwemmer Gallery in London. Chilean poet, Pablo Neruda wrote the introduction for the catalogue of this exhibition and provided insights into keyt's work. In a review of his exhibition held jointly with Beling at the Ferguson Memorial Hall in January 1930, he wrote: "Keyt, I think, is the living nucleus of a great painter. In all his work there is the moderation of maturity, the beautiful stability of achievement – qualities most precious in so young an artist. Magically though he places his colours, and carefully though he distributes his plastic volumes, Keyt's pictures nevertheless produce a dramatic effect, particularly in his paintings of Sinhalese people. These figures take on a strange expressive grandeur, and radiate an aura of intensely profound feeling." (M. Russell, George Keyt, Marg Publications, Bombay, 1950)By the early 1930s, the Cubism that would forever alter the character of his paintings began to emerge in his work. He broke away from academic naturalism and embraced modernism with bold colourful fervour. Upon seeing French art magazine Cahiers d'Art, most likely in the possession of Lionel Wendt, it is probable that the 1932 and 1933 issues featuring Cezanne, Picasso and Braque were the impetus for his interest and later passion for modernism. On a purely superficial level this departure seems monumental in Keyt's oeuvre however Dalmia notes that his works were more culturally loaded than their technical execution alone. 'As he moved to its village not far away and lived and painted there in the splendour of isolation George was to draw upon the dignity and civilization of the people which was embedded in their own culture. He etched the figures in darkness and made them luminous. Their early eloquence and sensual presence matched only their articulation as formal entities.'(Y. Dalmia, Buddha to Krishna: Life and Times of George Keyt , Taylor and Francis, 2016, pp.66-67)