Anil de Silva
| Anil de Silva | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1909 Kandy, Sri Lanka |
| Died | 1996 (aged 86–87) Cambridge, England |
| Nationality | Sri Lankan |
| Other names | Anil (Marcia) de Silva-Vigier |
| Occupation | Journalist and author |
| Years active | 1946 to 1996 |
| Known for |
The Life of the Buddha Through Painting and Sculpture (1955) Chinese Landscape Painting in the Caves of Tunhuang (1964), and a chapter in the The Cave temples of Maichisan and an account of the 1958 expedition to Maichisan (1969). |
| Notable work | Series on Man Through His Art for UNESCO |
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.
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.
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