Cora Abraham - she brought out the Artist in the human

Cora Abraham is one of the most unforgettable characters in Sri Lankan history. Her immortality lies in the fact that the woman, her school and teachings are one. Cora Abraham’s teachings have survived in the form of the Cora Abraham School of Art. She is forever immortalized in the form of her teachings which continue to be practised as long as there is Art in this world. Reminiscences met Ms. Chandra Thenuwara, chairperson of the Cora Abraham School of Art to reminisce Cora Abraham.

“Cora was born in Sri Lanka. She comes from a family involved in education. Before marriage she was Ms. Blacker. She was a trained teacher but not in Art. Actually she taught me geography. She was a Catholic but a very unorthodox Catholic; that is how we saw her. She had done work for the YWCA in India and that is how she met her husband. He of course died in Sri Lanka of tuberculosis, a life threatening illness at that time,” said Chandra Thenuwara.

The two women met each other at Good Shepherd Convent where as a young lady Thenuwara learnt Art and Geography under Abraham. Thenuwara recalls Abraham as being extremely versatile with an unorthodox way of teaching. “Although she had no children of her own, she really understood children. Her approach was to bring out the personality in each one and for that she used to say things that were very unconventional at that time. She used to say; ‘when you paint to express yourselves, never mind what your aunty or grandmother says’. At that time in the 1940s and 1950s that was a very revolutionary thing to say.”

Art exhibitions

At that time Geoffrey Beling was the Art Inspector of schools. He was in the Department of Education and a founder member of the 43 Group. He was open to Cora Abraham’s revolutionary ideas. “Throughout history things like this happen. When people come together there is an explosion of new ideas. It happens in science, it is very strange but it runs through history. In our little world this happened. In her revolutionary way of teaching art, Mrs. Abraham got Beling’s backing. She had the first child art exhibitions. It was a very rich time.”

The '43 Group was a combination of independent and free expression artists. The group included artists such as Harry Pieris, J.F. Pieris Daraniyagala, George Keyt, Ivan Peries, W. J. G. Beling, Manjusri Thera (later L.T.P. Manjusri), A.C. Collette, R.D. Gabriel, Walter Witharne, Y.J. Thuring, George and R. D. Claessen. They gained international reputation for painting in Sri Lanka. During this time Thenuwara recalled that Richard Gabriel was teaching at S. Joseph’s College and Aubrey Collette was teaching at Royal College. Therefore there was a lot of new thinking in the art field. At his time the 43 Group was very active. Thenuwara recalled at that time that the 43 Group was a breakaway from the Ceylon Society of Art. The vision of the Ceylon Society of Art was Britain and very conservative. The 43 Group realized more interesting things were happening in Europe and they responded to that. In a way Cora Abraham was an inheritor of all this because it was a very rich time.

“Cora was not a painter or an artist. She was an educator and sensitive to children. She wanted to bring out the creativity in children. It was using the medium of Art to express yourself. Like an English teacher would help you to write essays and poetry she helped children use the Art materials to express themselves and not to produce works of Art. The objective of this school is not to produce artists, but to produce children who are sensitive to the world around them and the people around them,” explained Thenuwara.

Self-confidence

If you come to the school at Christmas everyone will be decorating Christmas trees; during Vesak everyone is making Vesak lanterns. This makes you sensitive to Vesak and Christmas. Whatever your home background is, children get an awareness of what is going on. During Deepavali they make little boats with candles that float in the pond. The idea is sensitizing your mind to what is happening. You have your own reaction to what is happening and you express it. “Therefore what Mrs. Abraham said was each picture is valid. There is no way you can mark it or grade it. It is the child’s expression of a feeling. Every picture is valid. At the school we don’t give reports or marks.”

The school believes that children of one age group should be together. “We don’t send them for competitions because that is extremely damaging, especially if you win. Then you will have to evermore keep up to that and it is only the judges opinion. Our principle is expression through the medium of Art. They are all very happy coming here. When they come here everything is ready, with paper and paint. Technique is taught while they are working gently introducing ideas e.g. ‘ let’s not use so much paint? Shall we try a different way?” said Thenuwara.

The Cora Abraham School of Art which was started in 1949 has to offer children a wonderful free atmosphere to be themselves with teachers guiding them and no interference from any adult. You guide them unobtrusively; they don’t know they are being taught. There are no classroom lessons; it is individual guidance. There is so much freedom. “The school vision is to make a child a very balanced person. That is what you get here: Self-confidence and believing in yourself.”

Unconventional things

Asked whether she had any poignant recollections of Cora Abraham, Thenuwara recalled her Senior School Certificate. “I didn’t get a distinction in Art and she said; ‘Don’t worry about that, the examiners don’t know what they are doing!’ at that time for us to hear that was stunning! On another occasion the nuns wanted me to do a roster for our house. So I painted lilies on a blue board. Then nuns were very pleased. Mrs. Abraham saw this and said, ‘oh my goodness, did you do this? I would never have thought that this is yours, what happened ?’ I knew what she meant - it was not creative and free. I said, ‘this is what the nuns wanted’ and she said, ‘you never do what other people want; you do what you think is the solution for this requirement’. Those days those were very unconventional things to say.

Looking back Thenuwara recalled that Mrs. Abraham was a Catholic with her own view of things. But she never used to go to church every Sunday. “She would not rigidly go to church every Sunday. At Good Shepherd Convent she would wear a shalwar, colorfully clothed and a lot of jewellery. She used to tint her hair and was very exotic. She was like a beautiful work of Art. For those of her students who continued to take an interest in Art, she formed the Young Artists Group. They used to meet up every Sunday to discuss art.” Currently there are 240 students enrolled at Cora Abraham School Of Art. The maximum is 300. They never move beyond 300 because managing students is a problem. They prefer hiring teachers who have gone through the school. If they haven’t gone through the school there is a training course. “We charge student fees and material fees. But there are students with a full scholarship who really can’t afford it,” concluded Thenuwara.