Krishna painting Radha

George Keyt (1901–1993) was born in Sri Lanka (Ceylon) and educated at Trinity College (Kandy), an elite colonial school in the British public school tradition. Keyt gave much time to drawing and the study of art and developed a keen interest in Indian and Western literature. From a very early stage, the ancient hill capital and its Buddhist temples came to exercise a powerful and lasting influence on him, providing both a literary and artistic stimuli to his work. This interest spurred the young painter to reject the Western cultural values he had been brought up with and explore both Hindu mythology and Indian literary works. Towards the end of his career, the artist assimilated Western elements into his visual vocabulary such as Picasso’s cubism and Henri Matisse’s painterly flatness to paint Hindu mythological figures.