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Lot Essay
From a Western perspective, George Keyt’s work from the 1930s onwards is often described in the context of Cubism or Fauvism and compared with the oeuvres of Paul Gauguin, Georges Braque, Pablo Picasso or Henri Matisse. However, the sensuality and spirituality Keyt always imbued in his drawings and paintings underscore their enduring connection with the classical artistic traditions of South Asia, from ancient frescoes and temple sculpture to Rajput court paintings and Kalighat patas. Grounded in these traditions, Keyt’s work rejected the limitations of Western academic art to embrace what we now term global modernism, paving the way for other artists in South Asia to forge new idioms of their own as well as a new artistic identity for the region.
Writing about the ‘ways of seeing’ that he believed vital to the creation of any artwork, Keyt noted, “The painter sees things in three ways. The first way is identical to the way in which the layman sees things. What is seen is taken for granted. But the painter sees again, and this is the second way; and after that he sees again, and this is the third way. The last way of seeing is a falling to normality again where the activity in a state of trance is absent and replaced by a state of dispassionate objectivity where the result of the second way of seeing is contemplated” (Artist statement, “The Vision of the Painter”, Kesari People’s Weekly, 25 June 1941, in George Keyt: A Centennial Anthology, Colombo, 2001, p. 117).
In the third way of seeing, the simple and the complex are brought together in order to create an extraordinary reality which is encapsulated in the present lot. Here, “things are suddenly presented through an unaccountable wonderment, as if the objects, however common place, did never exist before” (Artist statement, Ibid., Colombo, 2001, p. 117). In this tender portrait of his daughter Diana with her newborn child, Keyt abandons his normally voluptuous and sensual women and loving couples to portray possibly the deepest human bond in existence, that between mother and child. Although he fragments his subjects completely, making them one with their surroundings, Keyt preserves the tenderness and purity of this relationship. The mother smiles gently upon her baby as the little one latches onto her with one small hand reaching towards her mother’s face, cradled in her loving embrace.
This affectionate and personal portrait, painted in 1958, was inscribed “For Diana with much love” by the artist when he gifted it to her on the birth of her daughter, his first grandchild. Here Keyt imbues the universal theme of mother and child into a deeply personal reflection of family, love and continuity – a portrait commemorating his daughter’s new motherhood.
In 2013, to celebrate the artist’s centenary, Diana Keyt published a book sharing some of the special works her father created for her over the course of her life. “Included in the book are photographs from our family collection and on the cover is a portrait my father painted of me with my first born child. This is the first time these very personal images will go out into the world. Even now as I turn its pages I feel I am back in that happy place. In my mind I hear the wind in the rain trees and the sound of evening music floating over the water from the temple across the lake” (D. Keyt, ‘Keyt’s sketches to a daughter’, The Sunday Times, Colombo, 10 November 2013).
Writing about the ‘ways of seeing’ that he believed vital to the creation of any artwork, Keyt noted, “The painter sees things in three ways. The first way is identical to the way in which the layman sees things. What is seen is taken for granted. But the painter sees again, and this is the second way; and after that he sees again, and this is the third way. The last way of seeing is a falling to normality again where the activity in a state of trance is absent and replaced by a state of dispassionate objectivity where the result of the second way of seeing is contemplated” (Artist statement, “The Vision of the Painter”, Kesari People’s Weekly, 25 June 1941, in George Keyt: A Centennial Anthology, Colombo, 2001, p. 117).
In the third way of seeing, the simple and the complex are brought together in order to create an extraordinary reality which is encapsulated in the present lot. Here, “things are suddenly presented through an unaccountable wonderment, as if the objects, however common place, did never exist before” (Artist statement, Ibid., Colombo, 2001, p. 117). In this tender portrait of his daughter Diana with her newborn child, Keyt abandons his normally voluptuous and sensual women and loving couples to portray possibly the deepest human bond in existence, that between mother and child. Although he fragments his subjects completely, making them one with their surroundings, Keyt preserves the tenderness and purity of this relationship. The mother smiles gently upon her baby as the little one latches onto her with one small hand reaching towards her mother’s face, cradled in her loving embrace.
This affectionate and personal portrait, painted in 1958, was inscribed “For Diana with much love” by the artist when he gifted it to her on the birth of her daughter, his first grandchild. Here Keyt imbues the universal theme of mother and child into a deeply personal reflection of family, love and continuity – a portrait commemorating his daughter’s new motherhood.
In 2013, to celebrate the artist’s centenary, Diana Keyt published a book sharing some of the special works her father created for her over the course of her life. “Included in the book are photographs from our family collection and on the cover is a portrait my father painted of me with my first born child. This is the first time these very personal images will go out into the world. Even now as I turn its pages I feel I am back in that happy place. In my mind I hear the wind in the rain trees and the sound of evening music floating over the water from the temple across the lake” (D. Keyt, ‘Keyt’s sketches to a daughter’, The Sunday Times, Colombo, 10 November 2013).