Michael Meyler at ARTRA Magazine’s Launch of the Laki Senanayake Edition & Art Experiential Festival ‘Laki’s Currency Notes of the Late 1970’s’ in conversation with Azara Jaleel at Jetwing Lighthouse on the morning of the 5th of March, 2023

In 1976, Laki Senanayake was approached by the Governor of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka, Herbert Tennekoon to design a series of currency notes. Laki chose to design them with drawings of fauna and flora which evidently broke away from the convention of including temples and symbols of cultural significance. The artist’s designs included only endemic species of flora and fauna, alongside the scientific name for each one whist placing them in their respective habitats, creating a series of 38 unique species. Laki conducted extensive research for the project, visiting botanical gardens and forests, relying on reference works, and finally creating watercolor sketches for the designs. The result was a set of 12 beautiful, original designs, each a self-contained artwork, with an innovative vertical orientation for the reverse side, pushing the limits of color and minimizing text. Laki's artistic signature is evident in the striking reverse sides of the notes, particularly the 10, 20 and 50 rupee notes featured on pages 28 and 29 on ARTRA Magazine’s Works of Laki Senanayake Edition (2023), showcasing his skill in capturing the beauty and detail of nature. In our interview with Michael Meyler, the author of the Sri Lankan English Dictionary & researcher, we further explored the background of this commission, and the manner through which Laki approached the project, and the aspects that make the artist’s designs significant.  

Q | Kindly share the story behind how Laki was approached and why, from your knowledge of research in this subject, to design the currency notes?  

A | Laki was approached in 1976 by the Governor of the Central Bank, Herbert Tennekoon, who knew him personally, and who had commissioned work from him earlier. He was an unusual choice, firstly because such designs would normally be undertaken by professional specialist designers, and secondly because Laki himself, although a well-established artist by that time, was also such an unorthodox character.

The background was that the two companies responsible for printing banknotes, Bradbury Wilkinson and Thomas de la Rue (which subsequently took over Bradbury Wilkinson in 1984) were competing for the commission to design the new series with the theme of Flora and Fauna. Both companies had submitted designs, both of which had been rejected. It was Bradbury Wilkinson who commissioned Laki on Herbert Tennekoon’s suggestion.

Q | How did Laki approach the commission?

A | Laki made it harder for himself by choosing to feature only endemic species of flora and fauna, and including the scientific (Latin) name for each one on the notes. In addition, these species were all to be featured in their respective habitat (hill country, Sinharaja, dry zone, etc.) with the appropriate vegetation as a backdrop.

A total of 38 endemic species are featured on the notes: nine birds, four butterflies, six reptiles (two snakes, two lizards, a gecko and a skink), three mammals (the Purple-faced Langur, the Golden Palm Civet and the Flying Squirrel), a frog and a fish. Endemic flora are represented by eight trees, two orchids, and four other plant species.

Laki’s research included visits to Peradeniya and Hakgala Botanical Gardens, and to Sinharaja Forest, where he spent several weeks drawing trees, birds and animals. But a lot of the species he chose to include were not easy to draw from nature, so he also relied on the reference works in Ismeth Raheem’s extensive collection of natural history books, such as W.V. Legge’s Birds of Ceylon.

By December 1977, Laki was working on watercolour sketches of the complete designs. When he had finished, he posted them to Bradbury Wilkinson. In 1978, he travelled to the UK to give his input to the final designs. Here he witnessed the laborious process by which his paintings were transferred to the steel engraving plates from which the notes themselves would be printed.

Q | What aspects do you find most significant of the currency notes designed by Laki, and how do these aspects in your opinion characterize the set of notes designed by Laki in comparison to those of others?

A | You only have to look at the currency notes which preceded the 1979 series (and those which followed it) to see how remarkably original Laki’s designs were. Earlier notes were almost monochrome, with a white border, and featured images such as the archaeological sites of Polonnaruwa, or portraits of SWRD Bandaranaike. Laki did away with the white border, minimised the amount of space taken up by text, and pushed the limits of how many colours could be included. As a result, each of the 12 designs (front and reverse of the six notes) is like a self-contained artwork in its own right, rather than a combination of diverse design features.  

Laki also had the innovative idea of orienting the reverse side of the notes vertically. This was an entirely original idea, which is still a feature of Sri Lankan banknotes to this day. Just a few other countries have since adopted this design feature.

There were also other practical considerations, such as the very small scale of the final product, and the fact that a blank space had to be included, in the same place on the front and reverse, for the watermark to be visible. Laki’s achievement was to come up with such beautiful and original designs in spite of all the practical constraints.

Q |  What is your favourite currency note of Laki’s and why?

A | That’s a difficult question. It’s the reverse side of the notes which are the most striking, partly because of Laki’s idea of orienting the reverse side vertically, and also because it has less text, so Laki was able to treat it like a blank canvas.

I particularly like the reverse of the 10, 20 and 50 rupee notes (Refer to pages 28/29 on ARTRA Magazine’s Laki Senanayake Edition) The reverse of the 10-rupee note is a strikingly colourful hill country scene, featuring a Yellow-eared Bulbul next to the bright pink flower of a Rhododendron tree. At the base of the tree is a Mountain Tree Frog, and next to it a yellow Daffodil Orchid. The reverse of the 20-rupee note is also set in the hill country, and features a Blue Magpie in flight above a Tree Fern, the latter based on an extraordinarily detailed drawing Laki did in Hakgala Botanical Gardens, which he described as “perhaps my finest drawing in pen and ink”. And the reverse of the 50-rupee note shows a night-time scene set in Sinharaja Forest, with a full moon and the constellation Orion visible in the sky, and a pair of Spurfowl at the base.

Laki Senanayake, 1977, Tree Fern, Hakgala, Sketch for 20 Rupee Note, Sansoni Collection

Q | What did you find most unique about Laki's currency note designs that mark his artistic signature that is pervaded across his artistic expression through his other media as well?

A | This was a challenging commission for Laki, not only for the reasons already mentioned, but because he was an artist used to working with great artistic freedom, and often on a very large scale. Here he had to work on a tiny canvas – the largest note (Rs 100) is 155 x 76 mm, and the smallest (Rs 2) just 108 x 60 mm. There was also a limited range of colours available for each note, which made the accurate representation of colourful species of butterflies and birds that much more challenging. Any additional colours could only be used within a limited band. This can be seen for example in the front of the 50-rupee note, where the bright red colour of the Malkoha’s eye also appears in the sunset immediately behind, but nowhere else.

Laki Senanayake, Red-faced Malkoha, Detail of 50 Rupee Note

Nevertheless, Laki’s use of colour is striking. While some images (such as the front of the 5rupee note) are almost monochrome, others (such as the reverse of the 10-rupee note) are remarkably colourful – in stark contrast to earlier (and later) series, in which each denomination has a dominant colour, identical on the front and reverse, and with little deviation. This perhaps explains why some people at the time didn’t think the notes looked like real money!  

The designs reflect Laki’s passion for the natural world which was a constant feature of his work. The depiction of trees and other plants and foliage are reminiscent of many of his botanical drawings, such as the Peradeniya prints which he was working on at the same time, and which were published in 1982. As for the animals and birds, the scientific accuracy which he aspired to achieve in the banknotes is not so much a feature of his later work, which more often portrays animals and birds (especially owls) in a highly stylised or abstract way.  

Some of the early sketches for the banknotes include animals hidden in thick foliage, rocks and other natural features, reminiscent of some of his other drawings, for example in his “Lost Collection” of the 1970s. But these do not appear in the final designs.

Some of the animals and plants featured on the notes also appear in other contexts in Laki’s work. For example, the remarkable drawing of the Talipot palm on the front of the 100-rupee note was also used for a plaster relief at the Triton Hotel in Ahungalla, designed by Geoffrey Bawa, which opened in 1981. And three of the bird images were also used on a painted cupboard which is now in Geoffrey Bawa’s room at Lunuganga.

Laki Senanayake, 1977, Talipot Palm, Peradeniya, Sketch for 100 Rupee Note, Sansoni Collection

Q |  What are your speculations upon the reasons behind the halting of his currency notes in a year or so?

A | I have heard many theories: they didn’t look like real money; they were too susceptible to forgery; they were printed on substandard paper; people didn’t like having lowly creatures like lizards and snakes on their currency; the Buddhist monks disapproved; the professional banknote designers were jealous; the minister stood to get a commission for the new series. Laki himself recalled overhearing comments along these lines.

Whatever the reason(s), the notes, having been issued in 1979, and gone into circulation in 1980, were replaced by an entirely new series between 1981 and 1983. This was highly unusual, and presumably costly. Normally a series might remain in circulation for ten years or more, being reprinted several times before it is replaced.

Remember that there was a change of government in 1977. The Finance Minister Felix Dias Bandaranaike and the Central Bank Governor Herbert Tennekoon, who had commissioned the notes, had been replaced by Ronnie de Mel and Warnasena Rasaputram, and it is they who signed the notes when they were issued in 1979. I suspect that they had something against the designs from the start and decided to replace them. They also wanted to include higher denomination notes due to the increased economic activity which followed the introduction of the “open economy” by the new UNP administration. The highest denomination in the 1979 series was Rs 100, but in 1981 Rs 500 and Rs 1000 denominations were introduced for the first time, and the 2-rupee note was replaced with a coin.

The new series reverted to the earlier theme of archaeological sites, but also featured two new projects which the government was no doubt keen to promote: the new Parliament building designed by Geoffrey Bawa (on the 100-rupee note) and one of the newly built Mahaweli dams (on the 1000-rupee note).  

And so Laki’s notes went out of circulation, and have since become highly valued collectors’ items. Laki himself was particularly proud of his work on the currency notes, and was keen to produce a book on the subject. Unfortunately, the book was not completed in his lifetime, but his daughter Mintaka is still keen to make it a reality.I would like to thank Ismeth Raheem and Dr Kavan Ratnatunga for their insights into Laki’s currency note designs included in this interview.

Michael Meyler is a language teacher and part-time lexicographer, writer and editor. He first came to Sri Lanka in 1985 as an English language teacher. He now teaches beginners’ classes in colloquial Sinhala and Tamil. He has published A Dictionary of Sri Lankan English (2007), and SET: a trilingual dictionary of colloquial Sinhala, English and Tamil (2013). He got to know Laki only in the last few years, as editor of a planned book on his currency note designs, and subsequently wrote an obituary of Laki on the Groundviews website.

Imagery from ARTRA Magazine’s Launch of the Laki Senanayake Edition & Art Experiential Festival ‘Laki’s Currency Notes of the Late 1970’s’ in conversation with Azara Jaleel at Jetwing Lighthouse on the morning of the 5th of March, 2023