Introduction
Lionel
Wendt was born in Colombo, Ceylon on December 3, 1900. Educated
in Colombo and Cambridge
(he studied
Law).
He also studied at
the Royal Academy of Music in London. On
returning in
1924 he practiced law for a short time , but
then devoted himself to his enormous talents as a musician till 1935 when
he turned to what became
his true and obsessive métier, photography. He
had a one-man show in London in 1938 . He died in Colombo
on December 19, 1944.
A
fellow photographer destroyed all his negatives some time after
he had died, on the ground that this was an accepted practice in
photographic circles ('the negative is the score;
the print the performance', -Ansel Adams-). All photographs we do have in stock are vintage (toned) silver prints
from the period 1934 – 1944. Very
few of his prints are
signed but all are
stamped with a Certificate of Authenticity by Gallery Ton Peek.
View
of his show in the Camera Club, London
1938, Photo: L. Wendt
Selection
of Exhibitions between 1934
and
2007
1934
-1944 In Ceylon, Art gallery Colombo, USA,
Asia and
England, Camera
club London
1959
Colombo during
the opening
of the Lionel Wendt Memorial art
Centre
1970
Town Hall Colombo
1994
Art Centre LW in Colombo
in corporation with the Deutsche Bank
1998
Paris Photo Fair presented by
Ton Peek Gallery
1999
Paris Photo Fair presented by Ton Peek
Gallery
1999
Paradise
Road Gallery in Colombo
1999
Lionel Wendt Photographs “One man show” Ton
Peek Gallery Utrecht
2000
Harold Peiris Art Gallery (Lionel Wendt Memorial Art
Centre)
2003
Fukuoka Asian Art Museum
Publications
