Ivan Peries
Encyclopedia
Ivan Peries was a Sri Lankan painter, and a founder member of the 43 Group of Sri Lankan artists . Born near Colombo
, from 1953 he lived in England. He was called 'the Romantic exile' by the group, because although he only visited his country of birth once again, in 1976, his paintings were concerned with his memories of Sri Lanka
.
Peries' subjects, repeatedly rural life and the ocean shoreline, were of 'a world neither ancient nor modern, clearly recognisable, strangely, hauntingly meaningful and yet ultimately outside the natural experience'. The subject of Ivan Peries' paintings, considered alongside psychological difficulties he suffered in relation to his cultural dislocation, have made him an important post-colonial artist, and a key figure in the origins of contemporary Sri-Lankan art.
in Colombo. Ivan had three siblings: Lester James Peries
, Erica, and Noel. The Peries family was a Roman Catholic family that had become anglicized. Ivan was fluent in English from childhood.
recommended Harry Pieris as Ivan’s teacher. Harry Pieries became mentor and friend to Ivan. In 1941 Wendt bought Peries’ ‘Homage to El Greco’.
Ivan Peries was part of a community of progressive, intellectual Sri-Lankan artists. They included Justin Daraniyagala, George Keyt
, Aubrey Collette, George Claessen, WJG Beling, LTP Manjusri, Richard Gabriel, Walter Witharne, and YJ Thuring.
His character at this time was ‘excited and tense, [acting] on the spur of the moment’. In the early 1940s he was ‘frantically engaged in a shuttle service, meeting one artist or another – Harry, Beling, Collette. He went all the way to Nugedola to meet Justin, then back to Lionel Wendt, who was respected by all’. In 1943, Wendt orchestrated a meeting of the artists along with Harry Pieris, with Ivan doing ‘the spade work’. These few Sri Lankan artists named themselves the 43 Group, after the year. They admired other such groups as the Surrealists and wanted recognition for a style of painting that had many influences but few restrictions, such as had been imposed on them by the Ceylonese Society of Arts.
In 1946 Peries won a government scholarship to the St John's Wood School of Art in London, to train for a further 4 years. During this time he produced a number of panel studies, mainly portraits, figures and nudes. He returned to Sri Lanka in 1949, and painted ‘The Bathers’, hinting at Cezanne.
British diplomat Sir Martin Russell was patron to the 43 Group from its inception, buying all works exbhibited by Keyt in one exhibition, and many works by Ivan Peries in the 1940s, financing his flat in London during the scholarship on the condition that Russell have first call on any paintings Peries sold.
Professor Qadri Ismail postulates that: ‘The problem with Ivan Peries was that he could not be dismissed with a convenient critical phrase or be put out of the way with an easy tag. He was mercurial and so too did his work have that quality. Until the last years of his life…[his] paintings had the air of a whim or fancy…All sorts of things stimulated his imagination: color…shapes…mystery, as in the deep forebodings of the sea and the rumblings of a monsoon equally full of awe, as in the painting known as The Return. There is stark realism in the anxiety with which the family awaits the return of the men gone out to sea.’
These paintings, which became darker in tone, speaking of cultural dislocation and the loss of Lionel Wendt, marked a period of intensity in the painter’s life. Following completion of The Arrival, Ivan was sectioned for temporary insanity; the painting had taken him "two years to plan, six months to execute, working 20 hours a day”. He collapsed and recalled of what followed:
"I spent six months in Friern Barnet
, where I was under sedation. Locked in, beaten up, kicked in the chest and put in the padded cell half a dozen times. That, sir, is the price of a "master work."
Looking through Ivan’s process in these works, according to Prof. Ashley Halpe, ‘gives one a richer sense of the complexity of cultural being in a post colonial context and helps to define the heroism of the artist’s triumph over disjuncture and psychic disturbance, enhancing, if that were possible, the capacity of the paintings.’
Professor Senake Bandaranayake wrote of Ivan’s work at these times that it was: ‘the product of a purely painterly meditation on the painter's indigenous experience. His mature work displays that fine control over feeling and technique that is present in all his work. Influences have already been completely absorbed and digested; they are operative as far as the entire convention of landscape within which the picture exists. Now in his full maturity, yet sufficiently removed in time to have absorbed and digested his experience, Peries has completely mastered his vision and his material.’
Ivan Peries died on the 13th February 1988 of heart failure, only a few weeks before Harry Pieris, who was ill and from whom the knowledge of Ivan’s death was withheld for fear it would worsen his condition.
, Angelico
and El Greco
, Matisse, Cezanne and many more', say Senake Bandaranayake and Manel Fonseka in their essential account; and even from some who didn’t paint, like Lionel Wendt
, postulated Professor Qadri Ismail.
In an account of Ivan and Harry Pieris, 43 Group member Richard Gabriel speaks of Ivan Peries’ natural influences: ‘Ivan invited me to meet some of his friends. Among them was George Claessen who joined us frequently. We met by the sea, a few minutes walk from Ivan’s place and seated by the rocks watched the roaring and rumbling waves dash against them. Sometimes we walked a fair distance to where the fishermen lived. If they were not out at sea they would be mending nets.’
The Victoria and Albert Museum and Imperial War Museum
in London, and the Petit Palais
in Paris.
Colombo
Colombo is the largest city of Sri Lanka. It is located on the west coast of the island and adjacent to Sri Jayawardenapura Kotte, the capital of Sri Lanka. Colombo is often referred to as the capital of the country, since Sri Jayawardenapura Kotte is a satellite city of Colombo...
, from 1953 he lived in England. He was called 'the Romantic exile' by the group, because although he only visited his country of birth once again, in 1976, his paintings were concerned with his memories of Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Known until 1972 as Ceylon , Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the...
.
Peries' subjects, repeatedly rural life and the ocean shoreline, were of 'a world neither ancient nor modern, clearly recognisable, strangely, hauntingly meaningful and yet ultimately outside the natural experience'. The subject of Ivan Peries' paintings, considered alongside psychological difficulties he suffered in relation to his cultural dislocation, have made him an important post-colonial artist, and a key figure in the origins of contemporary Sri-Lankan art.
Early life
Peries grew up in Dehiwela, on the Western shore of Sri Lanka, looking towards the Laccadive sea. His father Dr. James Francis Peries had studied medicine in Scotland, and his mother Ann Gertrude Winifred Jayasuria was a graduate of St. Bridget's ConventSt Bridget's Convent, Colombo
St. Bridget's Convent is a private girls' school in Colombo, Sri Lanka. It was founded on February 1st, 1902 by the Sisters of the Good Shepherd order, making it one of the earliest mission schools of the Roman Catholic Church of Ireland in Ceylon...
in Colombo. Ivan had three siblings: Lester James Peries
Lester James Peries
Sri Lankabhimanya Lester James Peries is an internationally acclaimed Sri Lankan film director, screenwriter, and film producer. An active filmmaker since 1949, Peries has been involved in over 28 films, including shorts and documentaries...
, Erica, and Noel. The Peries family was a Roman Catholic family that had become anglicized. Ivan was fluent in English from childhood.
Training and early work
Ivan Peries leant towards art as a vocation from a young age, and was a recognised artist by the age of 20. He refused his parents’ offer to take an academic university degree. Photographer Lionel WendtLionel Wendt
Lionel Wendt was a Sri Lankan musician , photographer, literature collector,critic, and cinematographer. According to Pablo Neruda, Wendt "was the central figure of a cultural life torn between the death rattles of the Empire and a human appraisal of the untapped values of Ceylon."-External...
recommended Harry Pieris as Ivan’s teacher. Harry Pieries became mentor and friend to Ivan. In 1941 Wendt bought Peries’ ‘Homage to El Greco’.
Ivan Peries was part of a community of progressive, intellectual Sri-Lankan artists. They included Justin Daraniyagala, George Keyt
George Keyt
George Keyt is often considered Sri Lanka's most distinguished modern painter. Keyt’s dominant style is influenced by cubism and also influenced, he has said, by his contemporary Henri Matisse....
, Aubrey Collette, George Claessen, WJG Beling, LTP Manjusri, Richard Gabriel, Walter Witharne, and YJ Thuring.
His character at this time was ‘excited and tense, [acting] on the spur of the moment’. In the early 1940s he was ‘frantically engaged in a shuttle service, meeting one artist or another – Harry, Beling, Collette. He went all the way to Nugedola to meet Justin, then back to Lionel Wendt, who was respected by all’. In 1943, Wendt orchestrated a meeting of the artists along with Harry Pieris, with Ivan doing ‘the spade work’. These few Sri Lankan artists named themselves the 43 Group, after the year. They admired other such groups as the Surrealists and wanted recognition for a style of painting that had many influences but few restrictions, such as had been imposed on them by the Ceylonese Society of Arts.
In 1946 Peries won a government scholarship to the St John's Wood School of Art in London, to train for a further 4 years. During this time he produced a number of panel studies, mainly portraits, figures and nudes. He returned to Sri Lanka in 1949, and painted ‘The Bathers’, hinting at Cezanne.
British diplomat Sir Martin Russell was patron to the 43 Group from its inception, buying all works exbhibited by Keyt in one exhibition, and many works by Ivan Peries in the 1940s, financing his flat in London during the scholarship on the condition that Russell have first call on any paintings Peries sold.
London
Ivan moved to England's capital in 1953. The following years saw the production of three major paintings: The Wave (1955), The Return (1956) and The Arrival (1959–60).Professor Qadri Ismail postulates that: ‘The problem with Ivan Peries was that he could not be dismissed with a convenient critical phrase or be put out of the way with an easy tag. He was mercurial and so too did his work have that quality. Until the last years of his life…[his] paintings had the air of a whim or fancy…All sorts of things stimulated his imagination: color…shapes…mystery, as in the deep forebodings of the sea and the rumblings of a monsoon equally full of awe, as in the painting known as The Return. There is stark realism in the anxiety with which the family awaits the return of the men gone out to sea.’
These paintings, which became darker in tone, speaking of cultural dislocation and the loss of Lionel Wendt, marked a period of intensity in the painter’s life. Following completion of The Arrival, Ivan was sectioned for temporary insanity; the painting had taken him "two years to plan, six months to execute, working 20 hours a day”. He collapsed and recalled of what followed:
"I spent six months in Friern Barnet
Friern Barnet
Friern Barnet is a place in the London Borough of Barnet. It is a suburban development situated north of Charing Cross. The centre of Friern Barnet is formed by the busy intersection of Colney Hatch Lane , Woodhouse Road and Friern Barnet Road .-History:Friern Barnet was an...
, where I was under sedation. Locked in, beaten up, kicked in the chest and put in the padded cell half a dozen times. That, sir, is the price of a "master work."
Looking through Ivan’s process in these works, according to Prof. Ashley Halpe, ‘gives one a richer sense of the complexity of cultural being in a post colonial context and helps to define the heroism of the artist’s triumph over disjuncture and psychic disturbance, enhancing, if that were possible, the capacity of the paintings.’
Later years
Ivan and his wife Veronica (née) Perry (m. 1955) had four children. They settled in Southend-on-Sea. Ivan returned to the ocean and to a contemplation of the shore-line of Sri Lanka, painting in tempura on canvas and board, or watercolour, showing tall trees as elongated as his early figures, and round huts - the male and female by the bands of sand, sea and sky, often at dusk, or under moonlight.Professor Senake Bandaranayake wrote of Ivan’s work at these times that it was: ‘the product of a purely painterly meditation on the painter's indigenous experience. His mature work displays that fine control over feeling and technique that is present in all his work. Influences have already been completely absorbed and digested; they are operative as far as the entire convention of landscape within which the picture exists. Now in his full maturity, yet sufficiently removed in time to have absorbed and digested his experience, Peries has completely mastered his vision and his material.’
Ivan Peries died on the 13th February 1988 of heart failure, only a few weeks before Harry Pieris, who was ill and from whom the knowledge of Ivan’s death was withheld for fear it would worsen his condition.
Influences
‘Like every painter, Peries learned from others: Piero della FrancescaPiero della Francesca
Piero della Francesca was a painter of the Early Renaissance. As testified by Giorgio Vasari in his Lives of the Artists, to contemporaries he was also known as a mathematician and geometer. Nowadays Piero della Francesca is chiefly appreciated for his art. His painting was characterized by its...
, Angelico
Fra Angelico
Fra Angelico , born Guido di Pietro, was an Early Italian Renaissance painter described by Vasari in his Lives of the Artists as having "a rare and perfect talent"...
and El Greco
El Greco
El Greco was a painter, sculptor and architect of the Spanish Renaissance. "El Greco" was a nickname, a reference to his ethnic Greek origin, and the artist normally signed his paintings with his full birth name in Greek letters, Δομήνικος Θεοτοκόπουλος .El Greco was born on Crete, which was at...
, Matisse, Cezanne and many more', say Senake Bandaranayake and Manel Fonseka in their essential account; and even from some who didn’t paint, like Lionel Wendt
Lionel Wendt
Lionel Wendt was a Sri Lankan musician , photographer, literature collector,critic, and cinematographer. According to Pablo Neruda, Wendt "was the central figure of a cultural life torn between the death rattles of the Empire and a human appraisal of the untapped values of Ceylon."-External...
, postulated Professor Qadri Ismail.
In an account of Ivan and Harry Pieris, 43 Group member Richard Gabriel speaks of Ivan Peries’ natural influences: ‘Ivan invited me to meet some of his friends. Among them was George Claessen who joined us frequently. We met by the sea, a few minutes walk from Ivan’s place and seated by the rocks watched the roaring and rumbling waves dash against them. Sometimes we walked a fair distance to where the fishermen lived. If they were not out at sea they would be mending nets.’
Public locations of Ivan Peries’ works
Sri Lanka: The Sapumal Foundation, and Anton Wickremasinghe collection in Colombo.The Victoria and Albert Museum and Imperial War Museum
Imperial War Museum
Imperial War Museum is a British national museum organisation with branches at five locations in England, three of which are in London. The museum was founded during the First World War in 1917 and intended as a record of the war effort and sacrifice of Britain and her Empire...
in London, and the Petit Palais
Petit Palais
The Petit Palais is a museum in Paris, France. Built for the Universal Exhibition in 1900 to Charles Girault's designs, it now houses the City of Paris Museum of Fine Arts ....
in Paris.