User:Wendt40/Lionel wendt

http://lionelwendt.org/

Lionel Wendt 1900 - 1944
Lionel Wendt was born in Colombo, Ceylon on December 3, 1900. Educated in Colombo and Cambridge (he studied Law). He also studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London. On returning  in 1924 he practiced law for a short time, but  then devoted  himself to his enormous talents as a musician till 1935 when he turned to what  became his true and obsessive métier, photography. He had a one-man show in London in 1938. He died in Colombo on December 19, 1944.

A fellow photographer destroyed all his negatives some time after he had died, on the ground that this was an accepted practice in photographic circles ('the negative is the score; the print the performance', -Ansel Adams-).

Selection of Exhibitions between 1934 and 2007

1934 -1944 In Ceylon, Art gallery Colombo, USA, Asia and England, Camera club London

1959   Colombo  during  the  opening of the  Lionel Wendt   Memorial  art Centre

1970   Town Hall Colombo

1994   Art Centre LW in  Colombo  in corporation with the Deutsche Bank

1998   Paris Photo Fair presented by Ton Peek Gallery

1999   Paris Photo Fair presented by Ton Peek Gallery

1999   Paradise Road Gallery in Colombo

1999   Lionel Wendt Photographs “One man show”  Ton Peek Gallery  Utrecht

2000   Harold Peiris Art Gallery (Lionel Wendt Memorial Art Centre)

2003   Fukuoka Asian Art Museum

Lionel Wendt was a barrister whose principal interests lay not in Law but in music and photography. He was a virtuoso pianist whose performances were highly regarded, and he was a dedicated teacher. As a photographer he earned the early plaudits of people in the profession; he was accorded the rare distinction of a one-man exhibition hosted by the makers of the famous Leica cameras in London in 1938. In 1943, the ’43 Group, a fellowship of distinguished Sri Lankan artists, was formed under his patronage.

Upon his death, his brother Harry and their friend, Harold Peiris, decided to commemorate Lionel Wendt in an Arts Complex. However with Harry Wendt’s early death the task of implementing it was left to Harold Peiris. He was to devote his whole life to this project, lavishing vast sums of his own money to see it completed.

The Lionel Wendt Art Centre is dedicated, as intended, to the performing arts, to drama, ballet, music, painting, sculpture and photography. It came about through the bequests of two brothers, Lionel and Harry Wendt, who both died young within a year of each other, in 1944 and 1945 respectively. Lionel Wendt was a barrister whose principal interests lay not in Law but in music and photography. He was a virtuoso pianist whose performances were highly regarded, and he was a dedicated teacher. As a photographer he earned the early plaudits of people in the profession; he was accorded the rare distinction of a one-man exhibition hosted by the makers of the famous Leica cameras in London in 1938. In 1943, the ’43 Group, a fellowship of distinguished Sri Lankan artists, was formed under his patronage.

Upon his death, his brother Harry and their friend, Harold Peiris, decided to commemorate Lionel Wendt in an Arts Complex. However with Harry Wendt’s early death the task of implementing it was left to Harold Peiris. He was to devote his whole life to this project, lavishing vast sums of his own money to see it completed.

The Lionel Wendt Theatre opened in December l953 with the production of Maxim Gorky’s "Lower Depths" with a cast of some of Colombo’s most accomplished amateur actors directed by Neumann Jubal.

Even today, the Lionel Wendt remains the best theatre in Sri Lanka

Lionel Wendt was the narrator for the film "Song of Ceylon" by Basil Wright produced in 1936. This movie, probably the first on the then Ceylon, won many accolades. This film acheived the double honour of being awarded the first place in the documentary class and the prix du gouvernemt for the best film in all classes at the International Film Festival Brussels 1935.