The legacy of the late Lionel Wendt occupies the collective psyche of Colombo’s cultural space largely through ‘The Wendt’. The institution that was born from the man whose activism in, and patronage of, the arts, during pre – republican Sri Lanka [Ceylon], is indelible when sketching out the contours and shades of modern Colombo’s cultural ethos.
By and large Wendt’s work was seminal in giving Sri Lanka its first modern depictions through the use of the lens during the last century. Wendt’s experiments as a photographer projected new angles, for a new world that was taking shape in many new moulds and motions. But as an artist, Wendt was not only limited to the shapes and curvature he ‘painted’ with the use of light funnelled and filtered through lenses. Lionel Wendt was principally about photography, yes, but also more.
There is also Wendt the pianist, and Wendt the epistle writer to add to the many facets that marked the character of the enigma whose legacy echoes across from the 20th century into the present day.
Exhibition at the Wendt
The exhibition that unfolds from November 2 to November 13 [with the exception of November 7 Poya day] at the Harold Peiris Gallery of the Lionel Wendt Arts Centre, being on display from 10 am to 7 pm, daily, will provide an assemblage of evidence that will speak of Wendt through photographs and writings.
From the most well known iconic photos of Wendt and by Wendt, to the lesser seen gems, this exhibition also showcases a series of writings that offer partly an epistolary narrative of how Wendt’s love for music was notable in understanding his friendship with fellow photographer and pianist the late Gladys Forbes. It is a narrative that will call you to let your gaze do the walking as the images do the talking. It is a narrative that will perhaps sprinkle stories upon your imagination if you care to meditate upon the shades of the visuals and the curvature of the handwriting.
‘Wendt’s Venetian’
As I gazed upon the portrait titled ‘Obeisance to Titian’ I couldn’t help but imagine how it whispers of a Venetian veneer wrapped in a moment of Shakespearean posture for Wendt’s lens. A Venetian who will never utter his lines. For all he was meant to say as he was directed to bear his façade with all his finery was a wordless pose, which forever shall be worth ‘a thousand words’ in the language of Wendt’s photography.
The countenance of ‘Wendt’s Venetian’ I couldn’t help but feel, bears a stark resemblance to the youthful days of my friend, the media personality Kumar de Silva. While writing this piece, I sent Kumar, via Whatsapp, an image of Wendt’s ‘Obeisance to Titian’ with the message: “This was not you by any chance posing for Lionel Wendt’s lens, in a previous life?” To which I received the reply: “My God”.
Re-imagining a bygone era
This exhibition presented by The Lionel Wendt Memorial Fund at The Lionel Wendt Centre for The Arts, showcases Wendt through his work, the many moods of Wendt and facets of Gladys Forbes captured in the form of still life through photography together with writings, which thus give the power to speak their story to the visitor’s imagination.
A particular long wide angle photograph of Wendt and Forbes doing a duet on stage, with striking stagecraft encasing them, captured in a moment which is now forever still and to remain unchanged, projects a softly toned yet theatrically impactful image. I cannot help but wonder what kind of story, of imagined lives and nostalgias of an era that has fallen silent, would Michael Ondaatje conceive, were he to encounter this exhibition, and his sensibilities thus moved, to write a novel that re-imagines Wendt’s story.
