Sri Lankan art, antiquities and maps: the record of the island that made it.
The painters who drew Ceylon and the modern masters who followed, alongside the maps and books that carried the island into the world. The research, the collection and the writing, gathered in one place, for those who study this work and those who buy it.
The Artists
The story of the island's art.
The traditions it began on its own, the outsiders who later drew and printed it, and the modern art it made its own.
KandyanThe island's last kingdom, and its first named artists.
Pre-modernColonial Ceylon, as its foreign visitors drew it.
TransitionalThe temple tradition, opening to the modern world.
ModernThe 1943 break that made a modern Sri Lankan art.
Late ModernAfter the '43 Group, and the coming of abstraction.
ContemporaryThe island's art now, and the artists making it.
“Every generation of artists must reinvent the language of art.”
Robert Motherwell
A private collection of Sri Lankan paintings, prints, maps, books and magazines of Ceylon, built over a lifetime.
Publications
Malaka Talwatte's published research on the island's art and antiquities, printed as essays and catalogue pieces, gathered here.
Featured catalogue essay19th Century Views of Ceylon by British Artists
Ceylon
The island behind the art, recovered from the record: its places, its people, its past.
For Collectors
Provenance, advice, and the eye behind it.