Ismeth Raheem, 1980, Negombo Fishermen, Raheem Collection, Colombo

Born on 18 October 1941 to M.M.A. Raheem and Ayesha Raheem from the Jaffna Peninsula, Ismeth Raheem was raised with his eight siblings in Hulftsdorp, amidst the rambunctious bustle of Colombo, and later in their family home in the quiet neighbourhood of Colpetty. His unique upbringing served as fertile ground for the seeds of intellectual and artistic appreciation, which he credits to his father, a successful lawyer and graduate of Sri Lanka Law College and his siblings for fostering a deep culture of knowledge sharing in their home. With walls adorned with paintings and a teetering library, the Raheem family home on 19 Clifford Road characterised much of the artist’s childhood. 

Early Childhood 

Raheem’s passion for the historical and technical nuances of art burgeoned in the early years of his life, notably spilling into his formative years as a student at Royal College, Colombo. In 1957, when he was barely 16 years old, he won the prestigious ‘History of Art’ prize at his alma mater. By then, he had developed a keen interest in well-known Impressionists whose work inspired his own, including the art form known as pointillism perfected by Georges Seurat, which he experimented with great passion. ‘The Railway,’ for which he was awarded the Ceylon Society’s Annual Art Prize, was based on a work by Claude Monet and Gare Saint-Lazare in 1877. In another composition titled ‘The Fisherman,’ he reproduced a work using the rough palette knife technique of Van Gogh. Later, he rigorously followed the abstract technique for which the Bauhaus artist Paul Klee was famous. Raheem’s paintings garnered high praise and commendation, stoking his passion into a roaring ambition and inspiring him to pursue a career as an artist. In fact, the artist used the considerable prize money to purchase several illustrated publications on European Impressionism and Post Impressionism. Raheem continued to participate in numerous art exhibitions, including a prestigious UNESCO sponsored showcase in Paris in 1959, where he helped present the Circle’s exhibition of drawings as the Secretary of Royal College’s Art Circle. His exposure to the great works of Cezanne, Gauguin, Monet, and especially Van Gogh, who had inspired him in particular, deeply influenced his views toward artistic experimentation.

 Artistic Practice

One cannot ignore the centrality of experimentation to his vast oeuvre of works as an artist. He demonstrates immense flexibility in his choice of medium, utilising textile, glass, metal and gold leaf while articulately switching between contemporary and traditional techniques, including pen and ink sketching, painting, engraving, etching, sculpture and even batik. The figure of the nymph-like woman frequently cycles into Ismeth’s work, prominently featured in ‘Nigerian Women’ (2016) on Page 50, where three curved womanly forms are cloistered together. The black coils of their hair intermingle as they loosely embrace. Perhaps most inherently, they are centred in ‘Medici’s Mistress’ (2000) on Page 16, where a naked woman with her locks tossed over one shoulder is sensuously posed at an open window mid-bath, a duplicitous temptation to the seemingly unwitting male figure sequestered beneath the awning. Framed by grey-blue shadow upon the cobblestone wall, the woman evokes a Dionysian allure in her sprightly disposition. Like the mistresses upon the walls of Sigiriya, she serves as an ultimately unaffected and untouchable idol of temptation.

Ismeth Raheem, 2000, Medici’s Mistress, Raheem Collection, Colombo

Moreover, much of Raheem’s work encompasses recurring themes of the natural world, in creative ode to his enduring fascination with flora and fauna. His artistic translation of this fascination sometimes encompasses the scientific and the intellectual, demonstrated none so aptly as on Page 17, where Raheem depicts his dissection of various leaves in pencil sketch, illustrating their diversified shapes and scientific terminology in painstaking detail. On the sliding scale of his amassed opus, his depictions of nature sometimes slip into the realm of mysticism, strongly evoking visual motifs that recur in traditional Sri Lankan art. Look no further than the faunal imagery scattered throughout his pieces, such as in his dramatic batik wall hangings. 

The fierce abstract depiction of a stalking, fanged and clawed leopard is accompanied by a stately peacock in the upper right-hand corner, captured in his batik work ‘Leopard on Vepandeniya’ (1975) on Page 25. In ‘Batik in Five Colours’ (1973), he centralises a mythical horse figure as the focal point of his batik. These faunal images, especially the peacock and the horse, feature prominently and are innumerable motifs across Ancient Sri Lankan Art. In fact, depictions of the horse and peacock are immortalised on the ceilings of the iconic Rakkhiththakanda Cave Temple in the Uva Province. These batiks also feature vine creepers along their borders, reminiscent of a popular 18th-century floral motif used by ancient Sri Lankan artists, detailed in various mediums of that era, from embroidered textiles to mural paintings. 

 Influences 

Raheem credits Laki Senanayake, whose life and works we explored at great length in ARTRA Magazine’s Works of Laki Senanayake Edition (2023), for having a profound and radical influence over his trajectory as an artist, opening doors and avenues in the art world that had previously been closed to him. Together, the two friends launched the Youth Artists Group (YAG) in 1961, which served as a launchpad for the artist’s creative endeavours and saw him exhibiting his art in YAG’s annual exhibitions, as well as being involved in peripheral aspects of the exhibition process, including writing catalogues, invitations, and designing posters for the art exhibits. Raheem designed the poster, invitation and other items related to these exhibitions, inspired by the works of Arthur Miller, Anton Chekhov, and the Italian Ugo Betti. Using his newly acquired skills, Raheem designed the sets for Miller’s ‘Death of a Salesman’ and Betti’s ‘The Queen and the Rebels’. 

Laki Senanayake, in many ways served as a conduit in Raheem’s life, introducing him to yet another artist who would subsequently have a radical impact on his artistic sentiments – Ena de Silva. Rife with traditional symbolism and a beloved marriage between his historian mind and his tacit creative impulses, Raheem’s experimentations with batik have resulted in some of his most eye-catching pieces, such as his vibrant batik wall hangings. It was Laki who encouraged Raheem to work at Edwards, Reid and Begg, the architectural firm now synonymous with the grand legacy of Geoffrey Bawa. Working directly under the tutelage of Geoffrey Bawa, who was then a senior partner at the firm, Raheem connected with artists and architects such as Ulrik Plesner and Barbara Sansoni, who were deeply influential figures in his life as friends, teachers, and inspirations. 

It was in Denmark, while Raheem was following a course in architecture at the Royal Danish Academy, Copenhagen, between October 1966 to January 1969, that he acquired the skills of engraving, lithography, and ceramics at the Art Department of the school, which widened his approach to other mediums. The artist was indebted to Ulrik Plesner for arranging the scholarship, which benefited him immensely. During this time, he also had the opportunity to meet famous Scandinavian architects, including Jørn Utzon, the architect and designer of the Sydney Opera House. In a discussion, Utzon related the impact the platforms and steps at Lion’s Paw, Sigiriya, had on his design for the winning project for the Sydney Opera House.

Raheem’s artistic ventures branched out to batik work, which he learned during his time at Ena De Silva’s batik studio in the 1960s. Notably, Ena set herself up to produce batiks in her residence, exquisitely designed in 1960-1962 by Geoffrey Bawa, who was then starting his architectural career, according to Raheem. He also said that Ena de Silva was fortunate to team up with Laki Senanayake as they formed an iconic team, consistently experimenting with multiple techniques and tools for printing on textiles. Raheem’s collaborations with Ena de Silva amounted to an important exhibition in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1963.

Ismeth Raheem, 2016, Nigerian Women, Raheem Collection, Colombo

Exhibitions 

In the course of his lengthy career as an artist, architect, and designer, Raheem has participated in, contributed to, and curated a noteworthy list of exhibitions in Sri Lanka, France, Denmark, USA, Switzerland, Germany, Canada, and India. As an art historian and expert on the history of photography in Ceylon, Raheem has curated and extensively researched the life and crafts of prominent artists and photographers such as Andrew Nicholl and William Daniell. Spanning from the 1980s, he has worked with institutions such as the British Council, the Goethe Institut, Barefoot Gallery, and the National Museum of India to collate and share exhibitions such as Nineteenth Century British Artists in Sri Lanka (1986), William Daniell: Tour Around England (1988), Images of British Ceylon: Nineteenth Century Photography of Sri Lanka (2000), an exhibition modelled after his book of the same name, Imaging the Isle Across: Vintage Photography from Ceylon (2010, 2015), and most recently A Scottish Artist in Ceylon 1907: Edward Atkinson Hornel (2024), which was a collaboration between the National Trust of Scotland and the National Trust of Sri Lanka, of which Raheem is the current Chairman. Of the exhibitions centred around his own work, the most comprehensive one to date was his Collected Works exhibit held at the Harold Pieris Gallery in 2019. This exhibition illustrated the depth of his artworks across mediums and techniques spanning 59 years of artistic practice. He has also dedicated a significant portion of his career to the preservation and exhibition of the works of his friends and colleagues, including Barbara Sansoni (1968), Ena de Silva (1967) and Geoffrey Bawa (2004). 

Writings 

Raheem has written a plethora of essays and critiques published across newspapers, catalogues, journals and important publications within a wide range of disciplines from the history of Sri Lanka thorough art, architecture, archaeology and photography to research publications on natural history. His publications include Archaeology and Photography: The Early Years 1868 to 1870 and Images of British Ceylon: Nineteenth Century Photography of Sri Lanka. Raheem also wrote catalogues for exhibitions, including Germans in Dutch and British Ceylon (Goethe-Institut); Engravings and Paintings of the Dutch and British Colonial Periods (British Council); and entries for The Dictionary of Art (London: Macmillan). He has contributed to the Journal of South Asian Natural History, penning articles alongside figures such as Rohan Pethiyagoda in the 1990s, and has continued to write articles for newspapers, notably The Sunday Times, featuring pieces on his career projects and contemporaries. These contributions by Raheem profoundly add to a body of writing that exemplifies the importance of Sri Lanka’s cultural heritage. 

Additionally, Raheem embarked on a significant documentation project between 1963 and 1966 with Ulrik Plesner, Barbara Sansoni, and Laki Senanayake on Sri Lanka’s indigenous and colonial buildings from the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. The artist credits this project to have formed the basis of his knowledge of Sri Lankan art and architecture, which influenced his body of work over the years at Edwards, Reid and Begg. Together, they documented, measured and drew many architectural monuments in the country that were under threat of redevelopment or demolition. These sites were incredibly significant due to their historical importance. Though Sansoni eventually published a portion of the accumulated research in her work Viharas and Verandas (1978), the intensive research that Raheem undertook had long-standing impacts on the direction of his art, architecture and related intellectual pursuits, involving his study of original 17th to 19th-century prints, drawings and paintings which have influenced the symbolic premise of many of his artworks, featured across this edition.