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Searching for George Keyt-By Uditha Devapriya   Source:Island Image Source:Island George Keyt, Sri Lanka’s most celebrated painter, died 30 years ago in 1993. During his life and after his death, he became the subject of several studies by Sri Lankan and foreign scholars. Today his paintings have found their way to some of the biggest art collections in his country, as well as to places like Christie’s and Sotheby’s. Taken together, these paintings represent some of the finest examples of modern art in Sri Lanka and Asia. They have also become symbols of Asian modernism. Born in 1901 in the mountainous region of Kandy, some 75 miles from Sri Lanka’s capital, Colombo, George Keyt hailed from a middle-class family that had become thoroughly Westernised and Anglicised. They belonged to the Burgher community, an ethnic group which traces its descent from the Portuguese and the Dutch. By the 20th century the ...