Lionel Wendt, Untitled (Goviya - V), c.1934-35

Lionel Wendt remains one of the best kept secrets in South Asian art

Lionel Wendt (b.1900-d.1944, Colombo. Lived and worked in Colombo) was one of Asia’s earliest modern photographers and a leading cultural figure in Sri Lanka. A pioneer of modernism in South Asia, Wendt produced some of the most striking and stylish examples of 20th-century Modernist photography, focusing on the people, traditions, and landscapes of his native Ceylon with a vision strongly influenced by Surrealist and Constructivist art.

Wendt studied law at the Inner Temple and music at the Royal Academy in London between 1919 and 1924. He spent a large portion of this time travelling across Europe, pursuing his passion for art, music and literature. After returning to Colombo in 1924, he quickly abandoned law and devoted himself to music.

Lionel Wendt, Untitled (Landscape into Art), c.1939-40

With the passage of time, Wendt became increasingly dedicated to the visual and performing arts, at first as a critic and patron, encouraging and supporting artists, and later as a practitioner. By 1932, he was firmly committed to photography, exhibiting in international shows and publishing in foreign photographic journals.

In 1938 Lionel was accorded solo exhibitions at the Camera Club in London by Messrs Ernst Leitz, makers of the Leica lens, followed by Camera Work in Colombo, where he presented works from 1932–38.

Lionel Wendt at Camera Club, London (1938)

Wendt’s work includes spectacular images of Ceylon: its landscapes, cultural heritage and local population, photographed during everyday activities or traditional rituals. However, his sensual homoerotic nudes are particularly astounding; given the time and place wherein homosexuality was not accepted, Wendt had his male subjects (men and boys) pose in the landscape or in his studio. Through the traditional Ceylonese loincloths worn by his subjects, which leave little to the imagination, and the academic poses he asked them to take, he was able to express his homosexuality under the guise of art and ethnography. Huis Marseille

From approximately 1933 onwards, Wendt started to print his film in his own darkroom. He experimented with technique and subject, using photomontage and solarization to produce sensual silver gelatin prints spanning portraits and landscapes as well as abstracted object studies grounded in Sri Lankan life.

Wendt's eye for powerful composition and innovative use of photographic techniques reflect the influence Man Ray and Lee Miller as well as Surrealist painters such as Giorgio de Chirico. Parallels can also be drawn with the work of Modernist photographer Max Dupain who brought a similar vision to bear on the people and landscapes of Australia.

Lionel Wendt, Composition - Mask and statue, c.1935

In August 1943, Wendt presided over the inaugural meeting of the '43 Group, a collective that sought to reaffirm the value of traditional Sri Lankan culture in the face of colonialism and state-sponsored Academic art. Wendt exhibited his work at the 10th Photographic Society exhibition on 16 December 1944 and died, in his sleep, three days later.

Wendt’s work is particularly rare since many of his studio negatives were destroyed after his death. His work sank into oblivion, and after having led a dormant existence for several decades, was brought to the attention once again in the mid-90s.

Lionel Wendt's work is currently on view at Tate Modern, London, in the exhibition Surrealism Beyond Borders arranged by Tate Modern and The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, where it was previously hosted. More recently, his photographs have been shown at Tate Britain, London (2020); MASP, São Paulo (2017); Huis Marseille, Amsterdam (2017); Documenta 14, Athens (2017); Dhaka Art Summit, Dhaka (2016); 10th Gwangju Biennale, Gwangju (2014); Fukuoka Asian Art Museum (2003).

Surrealism Beyond Borders at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2021-22)

Lionel Wendt: Ceylon at Huis Marseille, Amsterdam (2017)

A solo presentation by Jhaveri Contemporary at Frieze Masters 2014 curated by Adriano Pedrosa

Lionel Wendt and Mrinalini Mukherjee at the 10th Gwangju Biennial (2014) curated by Jessica Morgan

Lionel Wendt’s work is included in numerous important collections, including Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, New Delhi; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis; National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; Sharjah Art Foundation, Sharjah; Tate, London; The National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; and The Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

Vintage photographs by Lionel Wendt are currently on view in the exhibition Shifting Waters at Jhaveri Contemporary, shown alongside paintings and works on paper by Jake Grewal. Learn more here.

Shifting Waters at Jhaveri Contemporary, Mumbai (2022)

For more information and books on Lionel Wendt visit jhavericontemporary.com