18 Guildford Crescent was once a small, unassuming, single-storeyed house next door to the Women’s International Club in Cinnamon Gardens.
You entered the house by a short series of wide semi-circular steps and through a heavy wooden door which now hangs at the entrance to the Photographic Society’s rooms behind today’s Lionel Wendt Gallery.
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| Lionel Wendt- detail of the portrait by Geoffrey Beling, called The Red Dressing Gown (1940) in the foyer of the Lionel Wendt theatre. Pictures courtesy Applause at The Wendt |
But where it originally served as the entrance to the house of the man who is commemorated there, you entered a wide T-shaped lounge the centrepiece of which was a Steinway Grand piano. Around it on the wide walls hung paintings by George Keyt, their very vastness making an enormous impact on you, and great mural-sized black-and-white photographic prints by the master of the house himself, Lionel Wendt. The floor was of highly polished black cement. The atmosphere of the place was one of a serene calm despite the excitement of the paintings. It was, in fact, the perfect gallery, beautifully proportioned and carefully hung. In a strange sort of way it became a thoroughly acceptable setting for Beethoven and Boogie-woogie, in both of which Wendt indulged.
I did not hear Lionel Wendt play though he is remembered for his recitals and those he gave in the company of accomplished friends -- Gladys Forbes and Hilda Naidoo, for instance, but I did hear the Steinway Grand at which Hilda Naidoo and Janet Keuneman collaborated, not, she assures me as ‘piano-four-hands’ but in two-piano recitals in Wendt's house.
But that was some years after the death of Wendt and his brother Harry. There was talk then of creating a memorial to Wendt to mark his fervent contribution to the arts, his firm belief in certain values that had to be maintained in the performance of the music and in the dynamics of painting, of his enthusiasms for the dancing of Guneya and the drumming of Suramba; for his deep appreciation of the Sri Lanka of his time which he helped to record in that masterpiece, the Song of Ceylon.
If you should be so fortunate as to be able to see it now, you will observe the reverence with which a devotee carrying a pingo places an offering of flowers at the elbow of the recumbent Buddha at the Gal Vihara in Polonnaruwa. You will marvel at the magnetic recurrence of the Buddha image found there and at Anuradhapura. You will see an artist revelling in everything about him which made up the sum total of the richness of a country he dearly loved.
True, the Song of Ceylon is credited to Basil Wright and the hand that made it may have been the hand of Basil Wright but certainly, the voice that spoke the commentary was the voice of Lionel Wendt. Even about that hand, there are any number of photographs by Wendt which seem to indicate that the images in the documentary film could have come directly from Wendt himself: they are absolutely his compositions and I think the implications that follow are forgiveable.
In the foyer of the present Lionel Wendt Memorial Arts Centre, the accomplishment largely of Harold Peiris and friends, is a decently large portrait of a man in a red dressing gown seated at that same familiar Steinway Grand. This is Lionel Wendt at the hands of Geoffrey Beling.
In a remarkable way, their association has very important implications: Beling, a sometime architecture student in the 1920s, designed the original memorial arts centre with the tall acoustic tower over the stage at the back. Later generations added the rooms for the Photographic Society, and yet later the gallery which now faces Guildford Crescent. The memorial is almost complete but for space for a library and music room and a gallery for some chosen pieces of Wendt’s indisputable mastery of the camera. It is ironical that a Japanese museum has a collection of these photographs where not one is to be seen here.
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| Great days at the Wendt: Irangani Serasinghe as Grusha in Ernest MacIntyre’s production for Stage & Set of Brecht’s The Caucasian Chalk Circle |
Likewise, Lionel Wendt was wholeheartedly in support of the creation of the ’43 Group. His collection of some 75 paintings by members of the Group (among others) which he highly admired was eventually confined to the space below the stage of the theatre where water and damp and a family of rats made merry.
These paintings, which should have been the nucleus of a national collection, were auctioned and many items dispersed beyond recall. The only part of it that bears some meaningful relevance to the original work of the ’43 Group was wisely purchased by Harry Pieris and is now part of the Sapumal Foundation.
It has been the purpose of the Lionel Wendt over the years to serve as the setting for performances of theatrical productions and musical performances. In more recent times the gallery (together with its bijou companion, the Harry Peiris Gallery) have been the venues for many valuable and important exhibitions.
Development is, of course, part of our obligation, and so one prays for the establishment of a permanent collection of Lionel Wendt photographs, perhaps in the foyer of the theatre itself replacing some not-so-satisfying paintings that have unaccountably found their way there and of a chosen number of works by the ’43 Group so that together they will become the perfect, single monument to an outstanding artist.
If I may add by way of a postscript: I think it a pity that in re-naming Guildford Crescent, Lionel Wendt himself should not have been remembered. I think he would have been less embarrassed by this tribute than is Lester James Peries who has replaced Mr Dickman of Dickman’s Road.
The Festival programme: Nov. 16-20
Programme Launch
Tuesday, November 16
Opening of Art and Sculpture exhibition (invitees only): - 6 p.m. Main Gallery.
(Artists and sculptors exhibit their work on canvas, stone, copper and bronze).
Opening of Camera Work (invitees only) – Exhibition of Lionel Wendt photographs – 7 p.m., Harold Peiris Gallery.
The Art Centre Collection of Original Lionel Wendt photographs.
These exhibitions will be open to the public from November 17 to November 20, from 10 a.m. – 7 p.m. daily)
Wednesday, November 17 – Saturday, 20:
The Photographic Society Exhibit –
An exhibition of photographs presented by the Photographic Society of Sri Lanka.
November 17 at 6 p.m at the Lionel Wendt Theatre- Song of Ceylon - screening of Basil Wright's famous documentary film (30 minutes) with an introduction by Richard Boyle, and a documentary film on Lionel Wendt (15 mins) by Dharmasiri Bandaranayake. Entrance free.
Thursday, November 18
An Evening of Classical Music– 7 p.m. Lionel Wend Theatre
Featuring Cello Ensemble - by Dushy Perera
Preshanthi Navaratnam (soprano) accompanied by Soundari David
Trio - Ramya De Livera Perera (piano) Ananda Dabare (violin) Dushy Perera (cello)
The De Lanerolle Brothers
Eshantha Pieris (piano)
Duet - Natalie Gunaratna (soprano) & Preshanthi Navaratnam (soprano)
Friday, November 19 –
An Evening of Choral Music -7 p.m. Lionel Wendt Theatre
Featuring - Revelations
Soul Sounds
Merry An Singers
Peterite Chorale
Old Joes Choir
Menaka Singers
Saturday, November 20
Lionel Wendt and his camera work - A critique by Menika Van Der Poorten- 5 p.m. Harold Peiris Gallery
An Evening of Dance -7 p.m - Lionel Wendt Theatre
Featuring Mohan Sudusinghe (Kandyan Dance)
Dance Works Centre (Hip Hop/Jazz Ballet)
Tony Fernandez (Latin American)
Ravi Bandu Dance Ensemble (Traditional)
Senaka Abeyratna (Modern Dance)
Wendy Perera & Rangika Jeevantha(Classical Ballet)
Temple of Fine Art ( Bharatha Natyam)
(Box plan and tickets at the Lionel Wendt) |
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