Wendt, Lionel

A portfolio published in 2017 and edited by our gallery with 10 photographs in giclee technique is still available

limited edition of 25

4 boxes left

port folio in black linnen box 32 x 44 cm

matt size 31.5 x 44 cm / image size circa 29 x 21 cm

printed index page

photo 1

photo 2

photo 3

photo 4

photo 5

photo 6

photo 7

photo 8

photo 9

photo 10

book LIONEL WENDT ” CEYLON” edited 2017 224 pages 141 photos. ISBN 978- 94- 90119 -49 -2

available new and sealed

info@ topeek.com price € 375,=

a selection of available vintage prints in our stock

boy and column
1938
vintage toned gelatin silverprint
20.2 x 25.2 cm sold

boy and column
1938
vintage toned gelatin silverprint
19.6 x 25 cm sold

portrait with turban
c 1939
vintage toned gelatin silverprint
14.4 x 18.4 cm sold

portrait boy
c 1936
vintage toned gelatin silverprint
32.2 x 29.6 cm

1938 solarized print laying boy

26 x 38 cm sold

young boy nude
c 1940
vintage toned gelatin silverprint
24 x 15 cm sold

nude
1938
vintage toned gelatin silverprint
36 x 26 cm

sitting boy
1938
vintage toned gelatin silverprint
36 x 28.4 cm sold

near the beach (detail)
1940
vintage gelatin silverprint
37 x 26 cm

young man with fishing net
c 1938
vintage toned gelatin silverprint
25 x 30 cm sold

boy (detail)
c 1936
vintage toned gelatin silverprint
24 x 30.6 cm sold

sitting young man in sarong
1937
vintage toned gelatin silverprint
30 x 20.2 cm

boy in folded sarong c 1937

vintage gelatin silver print

29 x 19.4 cm sold

we have 12 vintage prints more available in our stock

please ask for price and image list

Modernist art photographer Lionel Wendt was born in 1900 in Colombo, Sri Lanka, to a prominent family of Dutch and Sinhalese origin. He qualified as a barrister in England in 1924 where he also trained as a classical concert pianist. By 1928 Wendt had abandoned law for music, developing an interest in modern art as well as avant garde music. However, by 1932, while still giving piano concert recitals, Wendt had turned to photography as his major medium of artistic expression. (His father was a judge but also an amateur photographer and had taught his son the craft.) Wendt exhibited his prints in many international photography salons and had several solo exhibitions.

Artistically Wendt was influenced in particular by surrealism and experimented with various techniques and processes, including montage and solarisation. He is principally a figurative artist and even his still-life studies have a human interest character.

Wendt’s photographs as a regional modernist in the Asia-Pacific region parallels the surrealist ideas of Australian modernist Max Dupain in Sydney during the 1930s and 1940s. Wendt’s image of a classical statue and what appears to be the head of a bodhisattva is similar to works by Dupain in its strange counterpoints of objects. The image, however, also seems to refer to Wendt’s European and Sinhalese heritage.

Wendt died prematurely on December 20th 1944 .

A memorial publication on his photography legacy was published in the 1950s and a relatively small number of his prints survive. Wendt’s negatives were destroyed by an executor. In 1953 the Lionel Wendt Art Centre was established in Colombo. It is dedicated to the performing arts, painting, sculpture and photography

Text : the National Gallery of Australia 2010 by senior curator mrs. Geal Newton

self portrait Wendt c 1936s (collection Sun pride Hong Kong ) Camera club London 1938 (collection ton Peek)

detail  of his desk at his studio in Colombo circa 1940s (collection Ton Peek)

Signature in red ;Lionel Wendt

 Exhibitions

1935       First exhibition of  Lionel Wendt in group show of the  Photographic society of Ceylon

1938       one man show Camera Club London  UK

1970       Town Hall ,  Colombo, Ceylon

1994       Lionel  Wendt Memorial centre Colombo, organized by Deutsche bank                              

1996       Camera Works    gallery 706  Colombo  Ceylon

1997-      Paris Photo Fair ,     Ton Peek Galerie NL

1998       Paris Photo Fair       Ton Peek  Galerie NL

1999       Paris Photo Fair ,     Ton Peek  Galerie NL

1999      “Portrait “ Group Show   Laurence Miller Gallery  New York   

1999       Paradise Road  Gallery  one man show .Colombo. 

1999       One man show    Ton Peek  gallery  Utrecht ( see illustration) The Netherlands

2000       A centennial tribute   Lionel Wendt  1900/2000  at Lionel Wendt  Art Centre   Colombo. Ceylon

2003       Fukuoka Asian Art Museum  , Fukuoka, Japan.    "      Ceylon by Wendt ".  (see invitation)

2013       Unseen pictures by Wendt   one man show .    Ton Peek  Gallery   Utrecht  The Netherlands

2014       Gwangju Bienale ,  Gwangju South Korea , (curated  by Jessica Morgan)

2015       One man show.   Frieze Master Art fair  London  UK

2017       Port- Folio,   (launch of ) 10  new printed photographs by Lionel Wendt,  edition Ton Peek , The Netherlands

2017       Fashion Show " You can't take it with you "  by  Jonathan Anderson ,  Paris.  France

2017       Lionel Wendt Ceylon ,  144 photographs on display ,  Museum Huis Marseille  Amsterdam  June - September   2017

2017       Documenta Kassel   ( edition Athens) ,  April-June   2017

invitation ton peek gallery 1999

invitation Fukuoka Art Museum 2003

invitation Museum Huis Marseille 2017




                   

Movies / Documentary

Song of Ceylon 1936  (Lionel Wendt was the narrator for this film by Basil Wright )  

Lionel Wendt - A Sketch   April 2012       




Books and  Selected Bibliography. 

Ceylon Daily news 1930-1944/ Times of Cylon  1930-1944/ Lanka Magazine 1946

Lionel Wendt´s Ceylon    by  L.C. van Geyzel ,  Lincolns/Prager  Publishers Ltd London 1950    120 plates   255 pages    5000 copies.

43 Group , a chronicle of fifty years in the art of Sri Lanka.  edition Latana Melbourne  1993  ISBN  0646136089




Lionel Wendt   Cataloque of the exhibition  LWM Centre Colombo  , published by Deutsche Bank 1994




Love and Desire  1999.  Thames and Hudson Ltd    by William A Ewing. Page 191 and 216  ISBN  9076341052




Lionel Wendt    A Centennial Tribute , 2000.   The Lionel Wendt Foundation  limited edition of 1000 copies.    

ISBN  955/9114/20/0




The Gaze Of Modernity : Photographs by Lionel Wendt   , Fukuoka Asian art museum   Japan 2003.   64 pages Cataloque 2003




Stripped Bare . 2004   Publisher : Hatje Cantz Verlag Germany. 253 pages Photographs from the collection of Thomas Koerfer , Zurich . ISBN 9783775714990




Hommes pour Hommes   , Homoérotisme et homosexualité masculine dans l´histoire de la photographie depuis 1840. Pierre Borhan     edition Les editions des deux Terres 2007 page 129- 147 –  149- 214 ISBN 9782848930




Picture Paradise   National gallery of Australia 2008

Asia Pacific photography 1840-1949          Isbn  9780642541758




ArtReview Asia no 1  september 2013 .  article:  by Niru Ratman2017  




Lionel Wendt Ceylon ,  catalogus ,144 works by Wendt   published during  museum  exhibition  Huis Marseille   Amsterdam ,  FW books Amsterdam




Lionel Wendt    , Art and Life    by  Sampath Bandara   ,    Saravasi publishers  Nugegoda, Sri Lanka  

isbn 978-955--310922-4       -  year  2017




Financieel Dagblad   FD magazine  8 pages   text by     Mieke Smilde      May 2017




De Morgen  (Belgium newspaper )    "zwoele Dromen uit de tropen"   article by  Jan Dertaelen       August 2017

A Queer Little History  of Art,   by  Alex  Pilcher     2017   Tate edition  London ,  page 56/57  ISBN   9781849765039