Lionel Wendt: Between Empire and Nation
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LIONEL WENDT: BETWEEN EMPIRE AND NATION A Thesis Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Cornell University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts by Kaitlin Emmanuel May 2017 © 2017 Kaitlin Emmanuel ABSTRACT This thesis looks at the life and practice of photographer Lionel Wendt (1900-1944). Wendt had a brief but prolific career as a photographer in the 1930s in the island then known as Ceylon, today known as Sri Lanka. His practice corresponds to a time in which the idea of what it meant to be from, and of, the nation of Ceylon was called into question as the island moved closer to independence from British rule. I situate my approach to Wendt’s photographs through this new imagining, and aim to bring his practice in conversation with the island’s social history from the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. My approach begins with Wendt’s role as leader of a forming avant-garde in Ceylon and how his practice as a photographer arose out of his interest in global modernist discourses and modes of cultural production in Ceylon. I also look to how Wendt’s photographs circulated, and the context and conditions of production that surround his photographs. Finally, I bring Wendt’s “Surrealist” aesthetic into question and expand on this categorization to account for his engagement with the Surrealist movement through discourse, in addition to his formal and aesthetic engagement. Rather than understand Wendt through a recognizable aesthetic and style, I seek to unpack the social aesthetics of his work. That is, how do Wendt’s photographs speak to the social, political and cultural conditions in which they were produced. The difficulty in bringing new readings to Wendt’s work arises from the limited access to his photographs, which are dispersed across private collections, out-of-print publications, and journals located in the depths of the archive. My access to this archive is also limited, but I do not seek to provide a comprehensive overview or understanding of his work. Instead, I use the social history surrounding Wendt’s practice to demonstrate how his photographs resist a singular meaning and can thus be subjected to multiple readings. These readings coexist and conflict with one another, which is itself an expression and reflection of their modernity and the conditions of their production. TABLE OF CONTENTS BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH .........................................................................iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...........................................................................v INTRODUCTION .........................................................................................1 SECTION 1: MODERNIST SENSIBILITIES ..............................................5 SECTION 2: EXPRESSIONS OF MODERNITY ........................................21 SECTION 3: SURREALIST FORMATIONS AND INTERVENTIONS ....46 CONCLUSION ..............................................................................................67 WORKS CITED ............................................................................................70 LIST OF FIGURES .......................................................................................75 FIGURES .......................................................................................................76 iii BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH Kaitlin Emmanuel has a BA in Art History from the University of California, Berkeley (2011) and is completing an MA in Asian Studies at Cornell University (2017). Drawing on postcolonial theory, cosmopolitanism, and comparative modernities, her research revolves around the emergence of modernism in Sri Lanka, examining how distinct narratives of nationalism modify the modernist project. She is a Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellow in South Asian Studies and Tamil language at Cornell. Upon completion of the MA, she will continue at Cornell as a PhD student in the Department of History of Art and Visual Studies (2022). iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First I would like to acknowledge that this thesis was written on the land of the former ancestral home of the Cayuga Nation from which they were forcibly removed. Thank you to Anne Blackburn and Iftikhar Dadi for welcoming me to Cornell and for seeing this project to completion. I am humbled to have been able to return to school and pursue this degree under your guidance. Thank you for your encouragement, your criticism, and your engagement with me as a junior scholar and thinker. I am also grateful to Laura Meixner, who supervised the first iteration of this thesis, to Salah Hassan, who introduced me to the post-colonial scholarship that would take my research on Sri Lanka in new directions, and to Sonal Khullar, who offered insight and encouragement from a distance. To my peers at Cornell, who took on the task of being both my mentor and friend, particularly Natasha Bissonauth and Aslı Menevşe. You provided support whenever and wherever it was needed, and helped me find my voice. Thank you for your investment in my personal and professional growth, and, more importantly, for your friendship. I am fortunate to have had the institutional support and resources of Cornell University to pursue this project. First, my ability to receive this degree would not have been possible without the South Asia Program at Cornell, who provided two years of support through Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowships. I also received funding to conduct research in Sri Lanka through The Graduate School of Cornell University and the Mario Einaudi Center for International v Studies. The Hart Fellowship for Tamil Studies, an initiative of the Institute of South Asia Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, supported my research on Tamil nationalism, which in turn, affected how I approached my study of Wendt. In looking to the emergence of modernism and nationalism in Sri Lanka, my thesis on Wendt expanded to incorporate ideas of how distinct narratives of nationalism modify the modernist project and how socio-political legacies condition art marking. This project involved two trips to Sri Lanka to conduct archival research and interviews. Thank you to the team at the Sri Lanka Archive of Contemporary Art, Architecture & Design and the community of students, journalists, and thinkers in Jaffna for your guidance navigating the archive, specifically Sharmini Pereira, T. Shanaathanan, P. Ahilan, Vimila Velthas, Kirubalini Pakiyanathan and Nilanthan. I am also grateful to the Sapumal Foundation for hosting me in their library, and to Rohan de Soysa for inviting me to peruse his collection of archival newspaper clippings. I am indebted to Chelvadurai Anjalendran and David Robson, who hosted me for the day in Battaramulla and allowed me to sift through a remarkable collection of Wendt’s photographs. The Lionel Wendt Trust and Foundation also bestowed their faith in me and my project for which I am forever grateful, particularly to Dilrukshi Rambukwelle, Selvam Canagaratna and Anu Weerasuriya. vi My time in Sri Lanka would not have been productive or enjoyable without the generosity and company of my family, who went out of their way to host me, feed me and see to well-being. Thank you for making me feel at home and welcome. Working and living in Sri Lanka, there is a recurring impression of how small the world is. Each day is subjected to serendipitous encounters and interactions and it is under these circumstances that I met Anandaraj Ponnambalam and his sister, Padmini Ponnambalam. Mrs. Ponnambalam invited me into her home to look at a portrait of her mother that was taken by Lionel Wendt at a party. It is not signed, and the photograph is in the original frame and matting from her childhood. In its fading condition and its very existence outside the grasp of the auctioneer or private collector, the photo is imbued with a meaning beyond its market and aesthetic value. Thank you, Mrs. Ponnambalam, for showing me this aspect of Wendt’s work. And finally, to my parents, who watched me consistently return to a country that no longer reflects the community, landscape and home they once knew and remember so vividly. Thank you. vii INTRODUCTION In the early twentieth century, a circle of artists emerged in the island of Ceylon preoccupied with the modern condition and a modern Ceylonese identity. Of this circle, the photographer Lionel Wendt (1900-1944) was its leader, patron and strongest advocate. The period also corresponds to a time in which both British imperialism was at its height, and anti-colonial resistance within the island and the subcontinent began gaining new ground. Wendt’s practice in the 1920s and 1930s is embedded within this moment of shifting political, social and cultural alliances that sought new strategies for defining the nation as it moved closer towards independence. Though Wendt died before independence was achieved in 1948, his photographs of Ceylonese subjects, landscapes, and culture form part of the core of artistic production that sought to challenge imperial rule by tapping into the values of a Ceylon that had become marginalized under Western domination. Wendt’s legacy is situated within this history of production, which, as a result, distracts from the ways in which Wendt was entangled with Empire himself. My interest in Wendt lies in this positioning in between Empire and nation. The nation of Ceylon is a historical term for the present-day nation Sri Lanka. Located in the South Asian subcontinent off the southern tip of India, the country has a long history