Features

ARTRA Magazine features the ’43 Group

Published

4 years ago

2022/09/25

The latest issue of ARTRA, celebrating its tenth anniversary, has more illustrations than text: wonderful reproductions of our artists ranging from the naturalistic to cubist, to abstract, interspersed with cartoons; all from the Sapumal Foundation. A double page notes significant dates of the local art world: 1930 and ’36 –

exhibitions in Colombo of George Keyt and Justin Daraniyagala; 1943 – formation of the ’43 Group on August 29, at Alborada, Guildford Crescent, Colombo 7; 1952 – first overseas exhibition of ’43 Group at the Imperial Institute, London; 1953 – exhibition at the Petit Palas, Paris; 1954 – exhibition at the Heffer Gallery , Cambridge; 1974 – Formation of the Sapumal Foundation by Harry Pieris, Founder Member and only Hon Secy of the ’43 Group. Two deaths are noted: 1944 – Lionel Wendt and 2016 – Richard Gabriel, last death of a core member.

Text material consists of Beyond a Revolt & Basked in the Instinctual by Azara Jaleel in three parts: Career developments in the early 1900s, Historical overview of Sri Lankan art and About the artists and their artistic styles. Excerpts from interviews include Cresside Collete (daughter of Aubrey) writing about her Father Figure; Kemal de Soysa titling his short piece True to a fault; T Shanthanan – Timeless cosmopolitans; Michael Anthonisz – Provenance and its importance; Rita Manella – Rekindling Sri Lanka’s rapture; and Rohan de Soya – Art & living / the beauty herein.

Azara Jaleel begins her Editorial thus: “The ’43 Group may be bygone, but the seeds they sowed of new thought and form shaped the beginnings of Sri Lanka’s Modern & Contemporary Art. Thus we take great pride in publishing this important edition in celebration of ARTRA Magazine’s decennium, paying homage to this historic movement.”

The ’43 Group

It was the first 20^th century modern art school established in Colombo in 1943. The Group was an association of like–minded artists who had originally been in the Ceylon Society of Arts. The breaking away and formation of a new collective was initiated by Lionel Wendt and had nine artists as key members: Geoffrey Beling (1907-1992), George Claessen (1909-1999), Aubrey Collette , Justin Daraniyagala (1903-1967), Richard Gabriel (1924-2016), George Keyt (1901 1993), Ivan Peries (1924-88), Harry Pieris (1904-88), and Manjusri Thera (1902-1982). They drew influence from Charles Freegrove Winzer who had been Keyt’s and Beling’s teacher. Referencing the name I retrieved the following info. Winzer (1886-1940) was a British painter and lithographer who lived in Paris and was held prisoner in Germany during WWI. He returned to Vienna, then held the post of Chief Inspector of Art in Ceylon and was widely regarded as a leading light in modern art to Ceylonese artists.

The reference adds: “The painting of the Group constituted a historic break in Sri Lankan and more generally, South Asian tradition. The most significant achievement of the ’43 Group is accepted to be their localization of European modernist trends to a distinctively Sri Lankan modernist art.” The Group extended its patronage to films (Lester James Peiris became an associate) and Kandyan and other local dance forms.

Some of the Group

All Sri Lankans know of and about George Keyt and Lionel Wendt. I was familiar with the names of others and knew a few details of each of them, but read up and feel it apt to pass on information gathered on the members who particularly interested me.

Lionel George Henricus Wendt

was pianist, photographer, filmmaker and critic. It was he who was the leader of the ’43 Group and gave it a home, which later was developed to the Lionel Wendt Art Centre with its theatre, exhibition hall and club. His collection of over 400 photographs is the nucleus of his vast art legacy to the country. It was a tragedy and great loss to the country and art that he died at age 44.

Geoffrey Beling.

We in our Kandy school had heard of him as visits by him as Inspector of Art were threatened in my time in the primary school. One sister was praised by him and I think he particularly praised Nalini Wijenaike, mother of Senaka Senanayaka.

Beling was born in Gampola in 1907 to watercolorist father and music teacher mother. In 1926 he went to India to study architecture and art at Bombay’s Sir Jamsetjee Jeejebbhoy School of Art. Two years later he returned due to his father’s death and opened a private art school in Havelock Town and also started exhibiting his work at the Art Club arranged by Charles Freegrove Winzer. Critics considered his art ‘ridiculous and degrading’ but Pablo Neruda, who lived some years in Colombo, thought he was a true artist, rare in Ceylon, and one of the two best. He painted mainly landscapes, still life and portraits.

In 1932, Beling succeeded Winzer as Chief Inspector of Art. and held the post till 1967. Unfortunately he stopped painting around 1945. He married Edith Deutrom and they had four children. One significant fact is that he prepared the original designs of the Lionel Wendt Memorial Arts complex on Guildford Crescent, Colombo 7.

George Claessen

was both artist and poet. His art was characterized by his mystical beliefs and ideas. Born in Colombo in 1909, he was largely a self-taught artist and began painting professionally when, aged 29, he joined the Colombo Port Commission as a draughtsman. He favoured modern European artistic forms over traditional Sri Lankan art. He had a painting displayed in the London National Gallery acquired during WW II by the War Artists’ Advisory Committee. Moving to abstract art, he exhibited his work in many galleries, among them in Melbourne in 1947, in London many times with the Royal Society of British Artists and the Society of Graphic Art and in the Venice Biennale in 1956. Throughout his life he continued working at the Colombo Port Commission and in addition to art, published several volumes of poetry.

L Thomas Peiris Manjusri is to me the most intriguing of founders of the ’43 Group because of the vast changes, even adventures, he made for himself. Born in near poverty in a fishing village in Aluthgama in 1902, he died in 1982, a celebrated, world known Sri Lankan. “His story is a commentary on the cultural history of 20^th century Ceylon/ Sri Lanka.”

Manjusri ran away from school and home when 11 years old with the said intention of discovering the world. He first apprenticed himself to a carpenter, then was assistant to a ballad singer uncle. Maybe he travelled around as ballad singers provided entertainment to villages with their viridu singing accompanied by hand held rabana and tambourine. He then became a shop assistant in Beruwela.

He joined the Sangha when 13 and under reputed scholar monks in the Mangala Pirivena, Beruwela; studied Buddhist philosophy along with Sinhala Literature, Sanskrit, Pali and Bengali. In 1932 he joined Rabindranath Tagore’s Santineketan Ashram.

However, had to return in two years when his father died. Thus began his life’s work of systematically copying, tracing and documenting drawings and friezes of old Buddhist temples. Living often in Colombo, he inspired the association of young artists. Thus his being a founder member of the ’43 Group. He visited Vienna and London during this period.

In 1950 aged 48, he disrobed and gave full attention to art and writing on art in South and SE Asia. Married late in life, with the help of wife Mangala, he researched and published in 1975 Design Elements from Sri Lankan Temple Paintings. Many were the awards he won, plaudits and honours for his art, preservation of ancient and medieval Lankan art and his writing. The highest of these was the 1979 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Journalism. ATRA Magazine has done Sri Lanka and the entire art world a favour by showing the disparate works of these artists in one issue in which we can see the diversity of their work and depth of talent. It is obvious that they did not copy from each other, but inspired each other to develop their individual identity and style.

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Features

Political violence stalking Trump administration

Published

21 hours ago

2026/04/30

Sahan Weerasooriya

A scene that unfolded during the shooting incident at the recent White House Correspondents’ Dinner in Washington. (BBC)

It would not be particularly revelatory to say that the US is plagued by ‘gun violence’. It is a deeply entrenched and widespread malaise that has come in tandem with the relative ease with which firearms could be acquired and owned by sections of the US public, besides other causes.

However, a third apparent attempt on the life of US President Donald Trump in around two and a half years is both thought-provoking and unsettling for the defenders of democracy. After all, whatever its short comings the US remains the world’s most vibrant democracy and in fact the ‘mightiest’ one. And the US must remain a foremost democracy for the purpose of balancing and offsetting the growing power of authoritarian states in the global power system, who are no friends of genuine representational governance.

Therefore, the recent breaching of the security cordon surrounding the White House Correspondents’ Dinner in Washington at which President Trump and his inner Cabinet were present, by an apparently ‘Lone Wolf’ gunman, besides raising issues relating to the reliability of the security measures deployed for the President, indicates a notable spike in anti-VVIP political violence in particular in the US. It is a pointer to a strong and widespread emergence of anti-democratic forces which seem to be gaining in virulence and destructiveness.

The issues raised by the attack are in the main for the US’ political Right and its supporters. They have smugly and complacently stood by while the extremists in their midst have taken centre stage and begun to dictate the course of Right wing politics. It is the political culture bred by them that leads to ‘Lone Wolf’ gunmen, for instance, who see themselves as being repressed or victimized, taking the law into their own hands, so to speak, and perpetrating ‘revenge attacks’ on the state and society.

A disproportionate degree of attention has been paid particularly internationally to Donald Trump’s personality and his eccentricities but such political persons cannot be divorced from the political culture in which they originate and have their being. That is, “structural” questions matter. Put simply, Donald Trump is a ‘true son’ of the Far Right, his principal support base. The issues raised are therefore for the President as well as his supporters of the Right.

We are obliged to respect the choices of the voting public but in the case of Trump’s election to the highest public position in the US, this columnist is inclined to see in those sections that voted for Trump blind followers of the latter who cared not for their candidate’s suitability, in every relevant respect, and therefore acted irrationally. It would seem that the Right in the US wanted their candidate to win by ‘hook or by crook’ and exercise power on their behalf.

By making the above observations this columnist does not intend to imply that voting publics everywhere in the world of democracy cast their vote sensibly. In the case of Sri Lanka, for example, the question could be raised whether the voters of the country used their vote sensibly when voting into office the majority of Executive Presidents and other persons holding high public office. The obvious answer is ‘no’ and this should lead to a wider public discussion on the dire need for thoroughgoing voter education. The issue is a ‘huge’ one that needs to be addressed in the appropriate forums and is beyond the scope of this column.

Looking back it could be said that the actions of Trump and his die-hard support base led to the Rule of Law in the US being undermined as perhaps never before in modern times. A shaming moment in this connection was the protest march, virtually motivated by Trump, of his supporters to the US Capitol on January 6th, 2021, with the aim of scuttling the presidential poll result of that year. Much violence and unruly behaviour, as known, was let loose. This amounted to denigrating the democratic process and encouraging the violent take over of the state.

In a public address, prior to the unruly conduct of his supporters, Trump is on record as blaring forth the following: ‘We won this election and we won by a landslide’, ‘We will stop the steal’, ‘We will never give up. We will never concede. It doesn’t happen’, ‘If you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.’

It is plain to see that such inflammatory utterances could lead impressionable minds in particular to revolt violently. Besides, they should have led the more rationally inclined to wonder whether their candidate was the most suitable person to hold the office of President.

Unfortunately, the latter process was not to be and the question could be raised whether the US is in the ‘safest pair of hands’. Needless to say, as events have revealed, Donald Trump is proving to be one of the most erratic heads of state the US has ever had.

However, the latest attempt on the life of President Trump suggests that considerable damage has been done to the democratic integrity of the US and none other than the President himself has to take on himself a considerable proportion of the blame for such degeneration, besides the US’ Far Right. They could be said to be ‘reaping the whirlwind.’

It is a time for soul-searching by the US Right. The political Right has the right to exist, so the speak, in a functional democracy but it needs to take cognizance of how its political culture is affecting the democratic integrity or health of the US. Ironically, the repressive and chauvinistic politics advocated by it is having the effect of activating counter-violence of the most murderous kind, as was witnessed at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. Continued repressive politics could only produce more such incidents that could be self-defeating for the US.

Some past US Presidents were assassinated but the present political violence in the country brings into focus as perhaps never before the role that an anti-democratic political culture could play in unraveling the gains that the US has made over the decades. A duty is cast on pro-democracy forces to work collectively towards protecting the democratic integrity and strength of the US.

Features

22nd Anniversary Gala …action-packed event

Published

22 hours ago

2026/04/30

Sahan Weerasooriya

The Skyliners: Shanaka Viswakula (bass), Mario Ranasuriya (lead guitar), Daryl D'Souza (keyboards) and Kushmin Balasuriya (drums)

The Editor-in-Chief of The Sri Lankan Anchorman, a Toronto-based monthly, celebrating Sri Lankan community life in Canada, is none other than veteran Sri Lankan journalist Dirk Tissera, who moved to Canada in 1997. His wife, Michelle, whom he calls his “tower of strength”, is the Design Editor.

According to reports coming my way, the paper has turned out to be extremely popular in Toronto.

In fact, The Sri Lankan Anchorman won a press award in Toronto for excellence in editorial content and visual presentation.

However, the buzz in the air in Canada, right now, is The Sri Lankan Anchorman’s 22nd Anniversary Gala, to be held on Friday, 12 June, 2026, at the J&J Swagat Banquet Convention Centre, in Toronto.

An action-packed programme has been put together for the night, featuring some of the very best artistes in the Toronto scene.

The Skylines, who are classified as ‘the local musical band in Toronto’, will headline the event.

Dirk Tissera and wife Michelle: Supporting Sri Lanka-Canada community events, in Toronto, since launching The Anchorman
in 2002

They have performed and backed many legendary Sri Lanka singers.

According to Dirk, The Skylines can belt out a rhythm with gusto … be it Western, Sinhala or Tamil hits.

Also adding sparkle to the evening will be the legendary Fahmy Nazick, who, with his smooth and velvety vocals, will have the crowd on the floor.

Fahmy who was a household name, back in Sri Lanka, will be flying down from Virginia, USA.

He has captivated audiences in Sri Lanka, the Middle East and North America, and this will be his fourth visit to Toronto – back by popular demand,

Cherry DeLuna, who is described by Dirk as a powerhouse, also makes her appearance on stage and is all set to stir up the tempo with her cool and easy delivery.

“She’s got a great voice and vocal range that has captivated audiences out here”, says Dirk.

Chamil Welikala, said to be one of the hottest DJs in town, will be spinning his magic … in English, Sinhala, Tamil and Latin.

Both Jive and Baila competitions are on the cards among many other surprises on the night of 12 June.

This is The Anchorman’s fifth annual dance in a row – starting from 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025 – and both Dirk and Michelle, and The Anchorman, have always produced elegant social events in Toronto.

“We intend to knock this one out of the park,” the duo says, adding that Western music and Sinhala and Tamil songs is something they’ve always delivered and the crowd loves it.

“We have always supported Sri Lanka-Canada community events, in Toronto, since launching The Anchorman, in 2002, and we intend to keep it that way.”

No doubt, there will be a large crowd of Sri Lankans, from all communities, turning up, on 12 June, to support Dirk, Michelle and The Anchorman.

Features

Face Pack for Radiant Skin

Published

22 hours ago

2026/04/30

Sahan Weerasooriya

* Apple and Orange:

Blend a few apple and orange pieces together. Add to it a pinch of turmeric and one tablespoon of honey. Apply it to the face and neck and rinse off after 30 minutes. This face pack is suitable for all skin types.

According to experts, apple is one of the best fruits for your skin health with Vitamin A, B complex and Vitamin C and minerals, while, with the orange peel, excessive oil secretion can be easily balanced.

* Mango and Curd:

Ripe mango pulp, mixed with curd, can be rubbed directly onto the skin to remove dirt and cleanse clogged pores. Rinse off after a few minutes.

Yes, of course, mango is a tasty and delicious fruit and this is the mango season in our part of the world, and it has extra-ordinary benefits to skin health. Vitamins C and E in mangoes protect the skin from the UV rays of the sun and promotes cell regeneration. It also promotes skin elasticity and fights skin dullness and acne, while curd, in combination, further adds to it.

* Grapes and Kiwi:

Take a handful of grapes and make a pulp of it. Simultaneously, take one kiwi fruit and mash it after peeling its skin. Now mix them and add some yoghurt to it. Apply it on your face for few minutes and wash it off.

Here again experts say that kiwi is the best nutrient-rich fruit with high vitamin C, minerals, Omega-3 fatty acids and vitamin E, while grapes contain flavonoids, which is an antioxidant that protects the skin from free radical damage. This homemade face pack acts as a natural cleanser and slows down the ageing process.