Laki’s missing work to go on display
More than 30 years after he painted them, Laki Senanayake has been reunited with 73 paintings. That their eventual return was made possible by, of all things, Facebook, amuses Laki no end. But the way the paintings first left his care is of equal interest.“It so happened that I was visited by Lady Olga Cannon, the wife of a British knighted Labour leader, in 1974,” he recalls. While visiting the island Lady Cannon wished to meet local artists and was introduced to Laki, who was at the time living in a commune farm in Dambulla,“in what could be charitably described as primitive conditions.” Undeterred, Lady Cannon chose to stay on for several weeks.
She watched as the artist captured the world around him in beautiful detail. His collection at that time included botanical images inspired by the gardens at Peradeniya, erotic sketches, illustrations of Indian folktales and even sketches which required a reader to pay particular attention to see the images embedded within images. “Seeing my work, and seeing me going off to spend several hours digging the fields every day, and returning to draw and paint in the night, she very kindly offered me Rs. 6000 and advised me to spend my entire time painting,” he says.
Seeing the potential in the work, Lady Cannon suggested they attempt to publish the paintings as a collection of botanical and landscape drawings. She knew the novelist Grahame Greene well and he was at the time a director of a prestigious publishing house. However, when the publishers said they would like text to accompany the images, Laki was decidedly unenthusiastic. “I wished to have a book to look at rather than to read,” he says now. Lady Olga tried several other publishers with no favourable result.
Time went by and Laki lost touch with Lady Cannon, hearing only that she had moved to Granada. “More time lapsed and I had completely forgotten about the drawings. As luck would have it, she had bequeathed the entire collection to her daughter- in- law, Diane Cannon, who happened to see the name “Laki” mentioned in the Facebook page of a friend of mine, contacted her and eventually tracked me down.”
Art collectors have already begun bidding on this unexpected trove, but Laki says the public will be able to see the paintings at an exhibition to be held later this year.
Udawattekele
Spot the elephant
Owl in scrub
- S.D.