LOT 66
GEORGE KEYT
B. Sri Lanka, 1901 – 1993
Seated Nude with Flowers, 1982
Gouache on card
63 x 37 cm
Private Collection, Singapore
Signed and dated “G.Keyt ‘82” on upper right
RM 8,000 – 12,000
George Keyt was a Sri Lankan artist, born in Kandy, to a Sinhalese Dutch family on April 17, 1902. He was also a poet, known for his vibrant coloured, Cubist like figure paintings. Keyt’s artworks are a beautiful matrimony of the Sri Lankan life, calligraphic lines of Henri Matisse, and forms he found in ancient Buddhist and Hindu sculptures, producing a wholly unique style. Keyt was strongly influenced by cubist experiments in perspective, and applied them in a way that was distinctly his own, drawing specifically from Indian artistic traditions. His subjects’ enlarged, embodied almond shaped eyes, paired with bold, crisp, heavy lines and expressive grandeur became the defining formal features of his work. This is seen in ‘Seated Nude with Flowers, 1982’.