Lionel Wendt

Lionel Wendt (b.1900-d.1944, Colombo. Lived and worked in Colombo) was one of Asia’s earliest modern photographers and a leading cultural figure in Sri Lanka. A pioneer of modernism in South Asia, he engaged with international art movements such as Surrealism and confidently made them his own. He experimented with technique and subject, using photomontage and solarisation to produce sensual silver gelatin prints spanning portraits and landscapes as well as abstracted object studies grounded in Sri Lankan life. Dedicated to promoting and advancing the country’s local culture, Wendt founded the influential 43 Group, an artistic collective in opposition to mainstream colonial and academic aesthetics.

Wendt’s work is included in numerous important collections, including Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, New Delhi; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis; National Gallery of Canada, Ottowa; Sharjah Art Foundation, Sharjah; Tate, London; The National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; and The Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

Submitted by Jhaveri Contemporary