Albert Dharmasiri

Much of what is taught about modern Sri Lankan painting passed at some point through one man’s classroom, and much of what is written was set down in one man’s book. Albert Dharmasiri was a painter and graphic artist who became, as much as anyone, the field’s teacher and its record-keeper, and an account of the Late Modern generation that left him out would be missing the person who did most to describe it.

He taught for more than thirty years across the Government College of Fine Arts, the Institute of Aesthetic Studies and the University of the Visual and Performing Arts, and was a senior figure in the school of art. His own practice lay in painting and graphic art. His authority, though, rests as much on the written record: he is the author of ‘Modern Art in Sri Lanka’, a catalogue of the Anton Wickremasinghe Collection, and co-author, with Senake Bandaranayake, of ‘Sri Lankan Painting in the 20th Century’, a standard reference on the field.

His place is central: a formative educator of the post-’43 decades, formed inside the modern tradition and passing it on to the artists who came after.

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Sources

1. Bandaranayake, Senake, and Albert Dharmasiri. Sri Lankan Painting in the 20th Century. Colombo: National Trust of Sri Lanka, 2009.
2. Published writing by Albert Dharmasiri.