Premila Thurairatnam …. Review of a presentation at the meeting of CSA (Melbourne Chapter) held on Sunday 12th Nov 2023 by Alan de Niese … with highlighting imposed by The Editor, Thuppahi
Melburnians gathered at Ashwood Hall on a beautiful spring day to listen to 3MBS presenter of ‘Wednesday Night at the Opera’ Alan de Niese. In his natural, engaging, manner he related his ancestors’ history, in particular, of George de Niese who was a well-known painter and musician in Ceylon. Alan’s Dutch ancestry dates back to 1730 when Benjamin de Niese was born. He was a soldier with the Dutch East India Company and a Scriba of the Land Court of Jaffna. George de Niese (1884–1954) was his great-great-great grandson making him the sixth generation to be born and live in Jaffna. His father James was a recognised artist in Jaffna. He was also a jack-of-all-trades who was known to be a good tailor and cobbler.
George and his siblings attended St. Patrick’s College and St. John’s College in Chundikuli, Jaffna and George was a drawing master at St. John’s from 1907-1911. During this period as a private Art and Music teacher is when he met and fell in love with Catherine Puvirajasinghe of the Singhe dynasty, direct descendants of the Aryan kings, AD1400, who ruled Jaffna up to the time of the Portuguese.
Naturally, her parents opposed her marriage to the ‘foreign’ Dutchman, so they eloped. They were married at the Jaffna cathedral and fled to Kandy to escape her family’s wrath. Eventually, they reconciled, and George painted portraits of his parents-in-law which can be found in The Singhe Dynasty of Jaffnapatam by Chevalier Dr. St. John Puvirajasinghe (Catherine’s brother). George was a regular prize winner at the annual Ceylon Society of Arts Exhibitions, winning a gold medal in 1921. His self-portrait, an oil painting in 1921, is on permanent display at the National Art Gallery on Green Path in Colombo. His portrait of Catherine titled My Wife won a prize as one of the best paintings at the Contemporary Art Exhibition in New Delhi in 1927. George was hired by the Buddhist monasteries to paint statues of Lord Buddha. He did so in secret as Christians, generally, didn’t step into Buddhist temples.
Alan then showed some stunning family portraits by George including that of Catherine reading to their eldest son Paul.
George was commissioned to paint portraits of bishops and college rectors which still hang in the respective school halls. Distinguished families like the Covingtons (their great-grandson Rex Olegasegarem wrote an article about them in The Ceylankan in May this year) were also his patrons. George has depicted, with exquisite accuracy, a Tamil way of wearing the saree on Mrs. Covington (nee Tambimuttu) and jewellery on portraits of young ladies who could possibly be her daughters.
He also painted some still life paintings and seascapes which are now in private collections and some in the National Museum in Colombo. His gargantuan (6 x 3 ft) oil painting of The Last Supper is in a private collection in Sydney.
Two of Ceylon’s foremost artists, George Keyt and David Paynter and others, were students at Trinity College, Kandy when George was the Art teacher and were influenced by him.
George and Catherine moved to Colombo with their growing family and George joined the teaching staff of St. Joseph’s College and later St. Peter’s College. At St. Peter’s he designed the college crest, and the college flag and wrote the music for the college anthem (here Alan sang out the first few verses of the anthem in his baritone voice, delighting the audience). Although George was affectionately known by the students as ‘Pappa de Niese’, he carried a cane up his sleeve to discipline boys who sang out of tune! George gets a mention in the first of Carl Muller’s trilogy The Jam Fruit Tree — “Old de Niese banged away at the Hammond organ at St. Mary’s”. He also played the organ for silent movies.
The artistic and musical genes continued through the generations, starting with George’s sons Terry and Douglas, only daughter Imsy, grandsons John, Peter, Alan and George and great-granddaughter Danielle who is an opera singer on the international stage. Alan then showed paintings by Terry which included variations of the flamboyant tree and wildlife and by Imsy of the mesmerising Haputale range (she lived there as a planter’s wife) and his own of Mount Lavinia, Christ Jesus and some portraits. Alan and his father, Douglas, were cantors at St. Francis’ Church and other churches in Melbourne. The de Niese Family Choir has sung at numerous weddings and funerals in Melbourne, too. One rarely sees such continuity of both art and music genes in one family. Tony Hopman, grandnephew of George is Sri Lanka’s leading portrait and landscape artist today, and we saw some of his paintings which included that of President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga.
Alan concluded his talk by thanking his wife Ramona for the numerous hours she had spent putting the presentation together. School staff photographs at St. John’s and St. Peter’s which included George shown on slides and the book The Singhe Dynasty of Jaffnapatam published by Times of Ceylon in 1968 which was displayed, added authenticity to the presentation. Alan and Ramona have spent many years hunting and collecting records of George and his descendants’ paintings. This included trips to Colombo in 2005 and to Jaffna in 2012. The speaker paid tribute to Ramona with a song that thrilled the already enthralled audience who reciprocated with exultant cheers, enthusiastic claps, and loud “bravos”. The hall was filled with some of the paintings shown on the slides thus enhancing the experience. Thank You Alan and Ramona for your hard work and agreeing to tell the story of your notable family.
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ALSO NOTE