The book, to be launched on Friday 21 June at the Olympus, BMICH will also be the platform for the launch of the Taprobane Collection website, which brings the Collection’s extensive gathering of paintings and artworks by Sri Lanka’s most celebrated artists into the digital space.

The book features Karunaratne’s rarely seen works held by private collectors including those by Kumar Sangakkara, Dharsh Peiris, Shamil Peiris and the artist himself. Artworks by George Keyt, Ivan Peiris and Aubrey Collette owned by Shamil Peiris and those of David Paynter and J.D.A. Perera from the Heritage Collection are used in relevance to Karunaratne’s influence as a modernist on Sri Lankan art. Contemporary artist and archaeologist Jagath Weerasinghe denotes that it is Karunaratne’s work that institutionalised the non-figurative and abstract tradition of art making in 20th century Sri Lankan art. “He is the first Sri Lankan artist to develop a complete discourse on abstract art.”