Lancelot Ribeiro

Born in Bombay in 1933, Lancelot Ribeiro spent his childhood between Bombay and Goa. He first arrived in Britain in 1950 to study accountancy. He lived with his half-brother, the well-known artist Francis Newton Souza, and soon abandoned his career as an accountant, instead choosing to attend life drawing classes at St Martins School of Art. 

Over the following sixty years, Ribeiro's relentless imagination prompted a diverse body of work, including tangled townscapes under explosive skies, brilliantly-coloured surreal scenes and playful wood sculptures and ceramics. The current work, a deserted townscape with church, depicted on grand scale, is an evocative example of his expressionistic landscapes. Rendered with vibrant colours and bold black outlines, the buildings and trees stand in sharp contrast to the muted space of the background. 

The past decade has seen a surge in interest in the work of the artist following exhibitions at London’s Asia House, exhibitions in India, as well as a biography by David Buckman; Lancelot Ribeiro: An Artist in India and Europe, published in 2014. The artistic and cultural heritage of the prolific painter was celebrated in a year-long project entitled Retracing Ribeiro held in London in 2016/2017, including an exhibition at the Burgh House Museum, Hampstead and events at the British Museum - ‘Remembering Lancelot Ribeiro and other Indian artists in 1960s Britain’ - and the Victoria & Albert Museum - ‘Ribeiro: A Celebration of Life, Love and Passion’. Most recently, a landmark show, titled 'Lancelot Ribeiro: Finding Joy in a Landscape', opened at Burgh House in May 2023, over four decades after his first show at the museum.