Career
He is often considered Sri Lanka"s most distinguished modern painter. Keyt"s dominant style is influenced by cubism. In addition to being a painter, Keyt was a poet.
He outlined his perceptions and practice as a painter in a few essays on the vision of the painter.
One of his most notable literary works is his translation of the Gita Govinda into English (Bombay, 1940) and Sinhalese. These translations were illustrated by his own line drawings (see Martin Russell collection and Amerasinghe-Ganendra collections).
Keyt was born in Sri Lanka (Ceylon) and educated at Trinity College (Kandy), an elite colonial school in the British public school tradition. Stemming from Indo-Dutch origins, Keyt gave much time from an early age to drawing and the study of art and developed a consuming passion for books and reading.
He wrote profusely in both prose and verse.
The young painter also began to turn his back on the values of the westernised milieu of the class into which he was born. His explorations in Hindu mythology and Indian literature led him to close links with the cultural life of India, where he lived for long and short periods from 1939 right up to the late seventies. A meeting with Rabindranath Tagore in the 1930s in Ceylon left a lasting impression.
Many exhibitions of his work have also been held in India, London and other European and American centres.
His pictures are found in various museums and galleries abroad, as well as in private collections in Sri Lanka and throughout the world. Sri Lanka has issued several stamps featuring the paintings of George Keyt.
