RANIL DERANIYAGALA

Foliage
Signed 'Artist Proof Ranil Deraniyagala' (Lower left) and titled and dated 'Foliage '74' (top left)
Print on Paper
10.2in x 8.7in (26cm x 22cm)
Painted in 1974

Provenance

Donated by Ms Sunethra Bandaranaike
Acquired directly from the artist at an exhibition held at Lionel Wendt by Ms Sunethra Bandaranaike, 1974

Ranil Deraniyagala (1936 - 1978) is a painter and pioneer Sri Lankan printmaker of extraordinary talent and achievement. His uncle, Justin Pieris Deraniyagala, was a founding member of the ’43 Group and one of Sri Lanka’s most internationally renowned painters. He was educated at S. Thomas College, Mount Lavinia, and then educated in Natural Sciences at Trinity College, Cambridge. Later, he studied Clinical Medicine at Saint Bartholomew’s Hospital Medical School in London, however, in 1960, abandoned this career to devote himself to painting and printmaking. He studied first at Kokoschka’s School of Vision and then at the Slade School of Fine Art in London.

He featured in many important exhibitions in Europe and the United States of America, and a major exhibition of his work was held at the Lionel Wendt Art Gallery in Colombo in 1974. The exhibition was opened by then Prime Minister of Sri Lanka, Sirimavo Bandaranaike.