Internationally reputed painter and sculptor Tilake Abeysinghe passed away in Toronto, Canada, last week. Abeysinghe was a graduate of the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera in Milan, where he studied painting under Domenico Cantatore and came under the influence of the world-renowned sculptor Mario Marini.

After graduation from the academy, he held exhibitions at art centres in Italy and Switzerland and established his own Atelier in Milan in 1980. In a professional career, spanning over 70 years, he held over 75 one-man exhibitions and represented Sri Lanka in several International Exhibitions. His work was exhibited in Colombo, Toronto, Sao Paulo, Montreal, New Delhi, Dhaka, Fukuoka, Karachi, Paris, Beijing, Copenhagen, Hamburg and London.

His major works include a 25-foot-high sculpture at the Italian Embassy, in Colombo, an 85-foot mural spanning the entire breadth of the Standard Chartered Bank building, in Colombo, a large mural in bas-relief at the American Express Bank, in Colombo, a 10-foot-tall bronze statue of Capt. C.P.J. Seneratne, at Girandurukotte,  a bust of Sri Jawaharlal Nehru at the Indian High Commission, in Colombo, and several large paintings, portraits and a 12-foot sculptured monument for the Central Bank of Sri Lanka, in Colombo.

Abeysinghe was awarded several accolades during his long career. Among them are the first prize for designing the Buddhajayanthi Stamp (1955), the Gold award for the most outstanding personality for aesthetic art by Lions International (1984), the Gold award at the Japan-Sri Lanka Exhibition in 1993, the Kalapathi award of Sri Lanka Society of Arts (1993), Vishva Prasadini and Ruhunuputhra Awards (1993). In 1984 he was invested with the singular title of “Cavaliere of the Order of Merit ” (knighthood) by the Italian Government for his services to art and sculpture.Tilake donated millions of Rupees to Sri Lanka to battle COVID-19. This includes ventilators, oxygen regulators, oxygen, blood gas analysis cartridges, ICU equipment, endotracheal tubes, and urgent ICU medicine. Proceeds of Tilake’s final exhibition in Toronto went to support malnourished families including pregnant mothers, lactating mothers and children less than five years old.

The font of Tilake’s Art is found in the lush green fields and forest glades of the Village of Karatota in the deep South where he was born. The salient features of his art are simplicity and economy. Simplicity in form and economy of means used to bring a canvas to life are derived from the unwritten philosophy of the Sri Lankan Villager, rooted as it is in the Teaching of the Buddha. Tilake’s myriad canvases are a celebration of life itself, an “Ode to Joy” in a Sri Lankan manner.

His paintings are permeated with beings of ethereal beauty, more often than not in the feminine incarnation. These canvases, which shout for the sheer joy of living, have oftentimes been created despite dire personal tragedy, like Schubert’s music. However, there is no trace of anguish in them. Tilake’s paintings are also highly original, they bear no stamp of allegiance to any other artist. Tilake’s paintings are simple and direct and they do need no titles either. Tilake paints from an inner compulsion to create and calls his paintings his “other children”. His legacy will remain for generations to come.