Untitled

Inspired by European modernists, especially Pablo Picasso, Sri Lankan-born George Keyt was a representative of the larger South Asian modern art that came into its own in the mid-twentieth century. He developed a lyrical cubist style early on in his career by harmonising the angularity of cubist imagery with soft, rounded lines, creating a definite, personal vocabulary, as evident in this Untitled oil. His colours were rich and warm, rooted in his origins as seen in the portrait of this young man, possibly a trader given his attire of the times, smoking tobacco vapours through a rudimentary hookah.