George Keyt (Sri Lankan, 1901-1993) Untitled (Girl with Ball)The Collection of Dr. Sandran WaranGeorge Keyt (Sri Lankan, 1901-1993)Untitled (Girl with Ball) signed and dated 'G Keyt 67' upper middleoil on canvas, framed83.8 x 51.1cm (33 x 20 1/8in).ProvenanceAcquired from Sotheby's, Indian and Southeast Asian Art, New York, 1st April 2005, lot 142.An Anglo-Dutch of Burgher origin, Keyt grew up in Sri Lanka and attended Trinity College, Kandy. He had a consuming passion for literature and poetry, specifically Shakespeare and also devoted time to drawing and art. 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, and later the leader of the '43 Group, of which Keyt was a founding member, noticed Keyt's skill and encouraged him to pursue art. Aged 26 in 1927, Keyt devoted himself to art and undertook a course on painting with the painter George de Niese. Keyt was also influenced by C.F. Winzer, the Ceylon Government's inspector of art in schools who rejected the naturalistic styles of painting favoured by art teaching that emulated Western Victorian and Edwardian traditions.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 the 1932 and 1933 issues of French art magazine Cahiers d'Art featuring Cezanne, Picasso and Braque his passion for modernism was cemented. In the two works on offer in this auction we can see how he married modern European practises with ancient South Asian fresco techniques found at Ajanta and Sirgirya and subject matter that was largely rooted in local tradition. His works depicted women, children, villagers, dancers, tradesmen and gods often drawn from Hindu and Buddhist mythology.Pablo Neruda perhaps best summed up Keyt in his 1930 review of the exhibition at Zwemmer Gallery in London, in which Keyt works were featured alongside Picasso and Braque,'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)