Anil De Silva

Anil de Silva (1909–1996), known as Anil (Marcia) de Silva-Vigier, was a Sri Lankan journalist, political activist, author, art critic, and art historian. She worked for '' Marg'', a quarterly Indian journal on traditional and modern art, and was co-editor of the children's magazine ''Toycart''; She founded the Indian People's Theatre Association, was associated with the Indian Communist party, and was considered Bombay's avant-garde. In 1958 she launched an expedition to China to study cave paintings. She published several books, of which the most prominent were: ''The Life of the Buddha Through Painting and Sculpture'' (1955), ''The Art of Chinese Landscape Painting: In the Caves of Tun-huang'' (original edition 1964, translated in English in 1967), (1964) and ''This Moste Highe Prince: John of Gaunt, 1340-1399.'' She also co-edited a series on "Man Through His Art" for UNESCO.

Biography

Anil de Silva was born in Kandy, Sri Lanka, in 1909. Her parentage was of a mixed race. Her father, George E. de Silva, was a Sinhalese Buddhist who became a politician, was President of the Ceylon National Congress, and also served as a Minister of Health. Her mother, Agnes Nell, was a Burgher Christian who actively campaigned for universal suffrage in Sri Lanka and succeeded in getting it in 1931 with the enactment of the Constitution which extended suffrage to all women over 21. Her sister Minnette de Silva was the well-known first woman architect of Sri Lanka.

After her marriage to Robert Nichol-Cadell, she resided in England from 1933 to 1938. However, this marriage did not last and she moved to Bangalore and from there to Bombay, where she joined her sister Minnette who was pursuing studies in architecture at the Bombay School of Architecture, where she was the first female student. While in Bombay, de Silva was one of the founders of the Indian People's Theatre Association. While in Bombay, her friend Mulk Raj Anand, a writer and member of the Progressive Writers' Movement, an art historian and member of the Communist Party of India, offered her the post of assistant editor of his journal, '' Marg'', which covered traditional and modern art and architecture. She was assistant editor of Marg from 1946 to 1948. In January 1947 ''Marg'' published an exclusive edition covering the heritage of Sri Lanka, its arts, culture and life. Through ''Marg'', de Silva became associated with the promotion of modern art and held many art exhibitions; one such exhibition was of George Keyt in India. With Pupul Jayakar, she co-edited the children's magazine ''Toycart''.

In the 1940s she was associated with the Indian Communist Party and was considered Bombay's avant-garde. She was one of the "principal ideologues and organizers" of the communist movement in Bombay. In 1945 she authored a book titled ''Chinese Women and Freedom'' (Kutub Publishers, 1945). She was involved in translating to English a book on ''Collection of stories'' by Ding Ling.

In 1949 she left her job in Bombay and moved to Paris, where she married a Frenchman. In Paris, she studied at the Louvre for a course in art history, the first Asian to do so. In Paris, studying the arts exhibited in the museums, particularly at the Musee Guimet, she learned to appreciate Asian art heritage. This later inspired her to write and publish ''The Life of the Buddha Retold From Ancient Sources'' in 1955, a book which incorporated illustrations of as many as 160 art works from various parts of Asia. In 1956 she presented a television programme on the BBC
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