GEORGE KEYT | UNTITLED

Acquired directly from the artist by his friend, Kenneth Valentine Livera

Thence by descent

Veilinghuis De Jager, 18 February 2020, lot 1024 

‘[George Keyt’s] distinction has been to assimilate such Western influences, while remaining unmistakably Eastern - a process all the more natural in that Western Art had first assimilated certain Eastern influences.’

- Sir Herbert Read (George Keyt: A Centennial Anthology, The George Keyt Foundation, Colombo, 2001, p. x)

Four years prior to the formation of the celebrated Bombay Progressive Artists' Group in 1947, a band of visionary artists in Colombo, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), founded the ‘43 Group, the island’s first modern art movement. With a profound admiration for Post-Impressionism and Expressionism, the group was devoted to advancing a Sri Lankan form of modernism. Among the founding members was George Keyt, who is now widely regarded as Sri Lanka’s most acclaimed twentieth century artist.

In 1946, Keyt left his native country for India, which was to become his spiritual home. He was greatly influenced by the country’s landscape and traditions, as well as the iconography and mythology of both the Hindu and Buddhist religions. These traditional sources of inspiration were then modernised by Keyt through his cubist forms and fauvist palette. In terms of subject, he is most renowned for sensuous portrayals of the female form, as seen in the current work from 1980. The painting, executed with crisp, striking lines, depicts a woman’s boldly stylised profile, and holds powerful affinities with Pablo Picasso’s portraits of his lover and muse, Marie-Thérèse Walter. In the present lot, Keyt’s subject, with her almond-shaped eye and thoughtful poise, is rendered with a tender simplicity, a quality which runs throughout the work of this distinguished artist. ‘[Keyt] employed all his resources, springing line, rhythmical form and glowing colour, to imbue his subjects with innocent sensuality and poetic charm'. (W. G. Archer, India and Modern Indian Art, George Allen & Unwin Ltd., London, 1959, p. 135)