Richard Gabriel and St. Joseph’s College
Richard Don Gabriel (1924-2016) is undoubtedly one of the most renowned, versatile artists' of Sri Lanka. Being the youngest member of the 43 group, which consisted of greats such as Lionel Wendt, George Keyt, Geoffrey Beling, Manjusri Thera, Justin Deraniyagala, Ivan Peries, Aubrey Collette and Harry Pieris, the young Richard was widely exposed to the masses of Ceylon (as it was known then), when he was recruited to be the art teacher of St. Joseph’s College, Colombo. It was the vision of the late Fr. Peter Pillai to appoint him as the art teacher and give him full freedom to explore his technique, skills etc and most importantly to host art exhibitions with his students. Till The Mountains Disappear presents a special outlook on Richard Gabriel and St. Joseph’s College through three articles published over the course of 65 years by three renowned individuals. The first is by the renowned architect and artist, Geoffrey Beling (1907-1992), who also happened to be the Chief Art Inspector. This article published in 1949 in the Studio Times as well as the Blue and White magazine, gives a glimpse of Richard's earliest works and the exhibition he organised with his students just after the World War II. The second article is by the late Neville Weeraratne, a collaborator of Richard and an original member of the art exhibition of SJC in 1949. He later wrote A Chronicle of 50 years in the Art of Sri Lanka in 1993. This article was initially published by Old Joes Dinner Dance Souvenir in Melbourne, 2011. The third article (an extract only) was written just after Richard passed in 2016, by the renowned Josephian Psychiatrist, Dr. Srilal Fernando, who happened to be a close friend of Richard. This was published as "Richard Gabriel:A Personal Perspective" on the Sunday Island on May 8, 2016 and on Prof. Michael Robert's Thuppahi blog. The final section of this article reveals an interesting account of how Gabriel sculptured one of the most renowned Josephian personalities, Fr. Peter Pillai. The readers are bound to enjoy these three articles which manifest a seldom seen view of Richard Gabriel.
(We specially thank Dr. Srilal Fernando for the articles, images and Akila de Silva for the time spent in type setting them)
-AMS
Art at St. Joseph’s and R. D. Gabriel
by Geoffrey Beling
St. Joseph’s College has been singularly fortunate in its art master R. D. Gabriel. Like Collette at Royal, Gabriel has been instrumental in stimulating creative work of the highest order in his school.
The exhibitions of school art at St. Joseph’s, like those at Royal in the time of Collette, have been one of the aesthetic delights discerning people in Colombo have enjoyed year by year.
With Collette he has been mainly responsible for demonstrating the power of creative work and the talent latent in Ceylonese children. Needless to say, their work has been an inspiration to others and today the increasing number of intelligent art teachers who use creative methods and obtain aesthetically satisfying results, owe their gratitude to these pioneers.
Both Collette and Gabriel have had the good fortune to teach students capable of implementing their ideas. Consequently at both Royal and St. Joseph’s art groups working in all media including water colours were possible and the results were correspondingly interesting.
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The 43 group by Aubrey Collette |
The work at St. Joseph’s College is by no means the immature work seen in schools without able guidance. Though it ranges from the spontaneous and primitive efforts of young children to the more cultivated efforts of older students, one is always conscious of a discerning aesthetic influence controlling, guiding and inspiring the beautiful results obtained.
The influence of a good teacher and the consequent awareness of significant art of different types in the work of his students is by no means imitation, as one unjust critic has maintained. Such influence is perfectly legitimate and inevitable. It is evident in the work of every first rate master as it is in the work of every aesthetic sensibility capable of receiving such stimulus.
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Christ before the entombment by Richard Gabriel |
Art at St. Joseph under R. D. Gabriel reveals a maturity that is not possible without such guidance, and indicates what could be obtained in other schools with the employment of teachers of similar ability and vision.
Year by year there has been a new discovery of talent at each exhibition, and a promise of future development that speaks well for Ceylon should it be brought to fruition by appreciative encouragement from a discerning public. At present the only likelihood of such appreciation is to be found in the ’43 group of which Gabriel was a vital member.
Richard Gabriel is not only a good teacher of art who knows how to stimulate creative expression without imposing his vision and personality on his students to the detriment of their own ; he is more. He is one of Ceylon’s best young artists.
Born in February 1924. Educated at St. Peter’s College, and trained in art first under Ivan Peiris, one of Ceylon’s most gifted young artists and winner of the western art scholarship, and later under Henry Peiris another of Ceylon’s talented painters. Gabriel reflects their influences in his original creative work, but his work remains true to his own vision nevertheless. There is beside an awareness of all that is best in modern painting, and this is no disqualification.
Some of his work is religious in theme and tendency, emphasizing the Catholic viewpoint, and some of it is not; but whether religious or secular in theme Gabriel’s painting is always distinguished by a fine rhythmic sense of design and decorative quality; and an original use of colour. It is creatively expressive, even when apparently imitative of some theme in modern art, and is never mechanically imitative, as is the work of all creative painters. Nor is he content to repeat himself endlessly in a particular branch of painting such as portraiture and landscape, as some do. He finds interest in all types of work- figure compositions, portraiture and landscape, and in different media.
His portraits are never an attempt to flatter or photographically reproduce a mere likeness. They are primarily problems in design and significant form.
He is a true artist, not working for money, fame or popularity, but seeking the resolution of aesthetic problems that interest him, and reflecting in his work the sincerity and humility that come from his unassuming nature.
He has had a measure of success. Three pictures of his exhibited at the War Efforts Exhibition were selected and exhibited in England., and he received four merit prizes at this exhibition. He has been a regular exhibitor at the ’43 group shows, where people of taste have bought his work. Fifty six exhibits of his students were hung at the All Ceylon Art Exhibition in July 1949 and most of them were in the first grade, but he remains the same unassuming Richard Gabriel.
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A Bishop by Vivien Kodikara, 1949 |
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An article by Richard Gabriel on the "Four Types of Art", Blue and White, 1950, pp. 15-22 |
Fr. Peter Pillai, Richard Gabriel & St. Joseph’s
By Neville Weeraratne
We have many things to celebrate at St. Joseph’s in Fr. Peter Pillai. His arrival was not readily hailed in 1940 when he was appointed Rector in succession to Fr. Maurice LeGoc. But as we know, history has delivered a different account. Those who came to know Fr. Peter were to know an extremely learned and compassionate man who had the ability to learn and the humility to take advice. This is how it came that Richard Don Gabriel was introduced into our company to teach art.
We were in cadjan sheds in the gardens of the residence of the Archbishop of Colombo in Borella after our magnificent campus in Darley Road had been requisitioned during the war. The design and development of those premises will remain in the perpetual memories to Fr. LeGoc, the botanist but educator most of all. I think it is good to recall that Fr. LeGoc opened the doors of St. Joseph’s to everyone, whether they could afford to pay fees or not. So we had boys from across the road in Mariakadde sharing their desks with the sons of the affluent members of Colombo society. Fr. Peter was to continue the tradition.
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Man and foal by Neville Weeraratne. This was displayed in the 1949 exhibition |
Richard Gabriel came to our school in the cadjan sheds of Borella in 1944, a very young man who had earned the acclaim of the art world of that time when his work was first shown at the inaugural ’43 Group exhibition. He was a change from the style of the old brigade which imposed on us the disciplined but uninteresting task of drawing and painting ‘still life’ made up of khaki topees and bowls of plaster fruit. Instead, Gabriel introduced us to a world of art of which we had little or no knowledge at the time.
He showed us reproductions of the European masters, da Vinci and Michaelangelo, the mediaeval painters, and the impressionists. We saw the splendor of the colour of Van Gough and the response of Gauguin to the simple life of people in the pacific islands. He showed us how the observations of Cezanne were to lead to the development of cubism at the hands of Picasso ; and so on.
He was also to introduce us to the great Indian fresco paintings of Ajanta and the magnificent Ellora; we saw the Sigiriya frescoes, the Buddhist sculptures of Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa and the murals of mediaeval Buddhist temples in the context of a Sri Lankan culture which had been kept hidden from an Anglicised Sri Lankan society.
These were to give us an opportunity to have a go at it ourselves. Not to be self-conscious over our lack of skills but rather to see how we could ourselves use line and colour to make designs and compositions that could excite our own sense of discovery. It was a means of learning about our own world.
All this is also history. Gabriel is now an acclaimed artist whose work has been acquired by such august organisations as the Musee de Petit Palais in Paris. His work is found in private collections throughout the world, among Sri Lankan expatriates and in Sri Lanka. He has been commissioned to paint murals in a number of churches in Sri Lanka, the best known of them being at St. Therese’s in Thimbirigasyaya. He has carved a very large figure out of sandalwood of the crucified Christ for the Jesuit Chapel in Clifford place, Bambalapitiya. There is a painting of the Last Supper in the refectory at the seminary in Borella. There is more work in the Papal Seminary in Kandy and at his parish church in Pannipitiya.
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Painting at Christ the King Church, Pannipitiya by Richard Gabriel |
All this became possible because of the foresight of Fr. Peter Pillai. By employing him at St. Joseph’s he was able to give Gabriel the conditions under which he could practice as an artist while teaching. He had the obvious advantage of three months of school holidays each year. These happy days lasted for near upon 16 years and included a year spent in London on a British Coucil scholarship.
A quite independent observation of his contribution to the growth of students at St. Joseph’s came from Geoffrey Beling, chief inspector of art with the education department. He wrote: “(Gabriel) is a true artist, not working for money, fame or popularity, but seeking the solution to aesthetic problems that interest him and reflecting in his work the sincerity and humility that come from his unassuming nature”.
Richard Gabriel has always been conscious of his indebtedness to Fr. Peter, and in acknowledgment of that painted his portrait for Aquinas University College now occupying the premises of the cadjan sheds of war-time St. Joseph’s. (Aquinas is, of course, the institute for tertiary studies created in the 1940s by Fr. Peter.)
Now living in his retirement in Melbourne, Gabriel has been hacking away at a block of wood obtained for him by Dr. Srilal Fernando.
It is to be a portrayed head of the Very Rev. Fr. Peter of Alcantara Pillai OMI, BSc, MA, MSc, PhD, DD and a string of other initials after his name, whom we all knew affectionately and simply as ‘Fr. Rector’.
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The art of Richard Gabriel by Neville Weeraratne |
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Richard Gabriel: A Personal Perspective
by Dr. Srilal Fernando
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Richard working on the wooden sculpture of Fr. Peter Pillai OMI |
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