Aubrey Collette:

The man who created 'Citizen Perera'

by Tissa HEWAVITARANE

Painters differ widely in the degree of their versatility. They differ too in the variety of their development. The genuine academic painters, the painter who is able to express himself fully within a great tradition and with complete understanding of its possibilities and limitations, is a very rare bird indeed and a fortunate one.

Such a painter was Aubrey Collette who had the rare and splendid gift of observation. His draughtsmanship was impeccable. He had an aim and duty to improve the art of his fellow painters. He was one of the founder members of the 43rd group.

After the 43 Group was formed, his style changed and he painted on his own unique way. His oil paintings were painted with immense werve. His metallic colours were harsh and uncompromising. The lines are to some extent modified by luminous colours.

Collette's truthful peasant images were very literally fabricated. His images of rural life have been characterised as greatly limited the peasants resting rather than labouring, the mood is vague or perisive.

In a tribute in the 'Sri Lankan' a now defunct Melbourne - based perodical, says how Collette admitted that he had never been happier than when he worked in Sri Lanka. He had said "Certainly there had been an inspiration. In other places (Sydney, Melbourne and Singapore) it was little more than employment.

His characters in Sri Lanka were people he knew from time to time. They sprang out of culture in which he had himself been nurtured and the problems they reflected were close to his heart."

The artists of the 43rd Group and the members of the Ceylon Society of Art were easy victims of Collette's laughter. He painted two water colour paintings of these people one called "43 Fresco," the other "Reminiscence Fresco."

Collette used to say that his first interest was drawing and that it was Ivan Peries who drew him into painting. 'Tamil, labourers' oil on canvas, 'African soldier' a vigorous painting from which the hallmark of the cartoonist is fortunately rising.

Collette's straight forwardness was effective in his oil paintings depicting simplified activities of the people in the street." William Graham found Collette's work a fairly direct interpretation of life.

Throughout his life Collette remained a shy and a modest person, never claiming any special place for himself. He was born on 5 September, 1920 to a Dutch Burgher family in Colombo.

Collette was an excellent cartoonist. His subjects were mainly politicians and people in public places whose frequent if not daily appearances in the newspapers made them household faces.

Collette's remarkable talent was to summarise them, not just for their appearance but for what they truly were.

Over the last three centuries, cartoons and caricatures have engaged the minds of some of the finest artists of Europe, America, and Asia. The best among them brought their mastery of drawing into a fine fusion with their intellect and intense feeling.

The art of caricature and cartoon the art of drawing as a form of 'fine exess' is a nobel art, indeed a fine art, though not thus recognised by academies. But there is a growing awareness in all countries of the world that cartoons are an important social and political activity that needs encouragement.

'Cartoonist are born, not taught' is a familiar saying.

It is true, of course, that one has to be born with some talent in this direction, but it can also be said that those who have the talent can be helped to develop it in the right way.

What qualities are required for a great cartoonist excellent draughtsmanship is perhaps the first requirement. The cartoonist should have a penetrating insight, superlative powers of observation and well trained visual memory.

Collette's cartoons included tackling social evils, criticising satirising them.

The cartoonist and his work capture the imagination of the intellectual the thinker the dreamer, and the average person in the street. For many of his fellow countrymen the creation of bemused figure christened as the common man Citizen Perera signifies caricature at its best.

All these were fulfilled to an extraordinary degree in Aubri Collette all rolled into one.

(www.tissahewavitarane.com)