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Podcast: EMPIRE LINES
Episode: Ceylonese Tea Pickers, Edward Atkinson Hornel (c. 1907)
Description: Ben Reiss exposes Britain’s colonial gaze, contrasting Edward Atkinson Hornel’s photography and painting, Ceylonese Tea Pickers.
Edward Atkinson (E.A.) Hornel’s Ceylonese Tea Pickers boldly depicts Tamil women working in their ‘natural’ Sri Lankan landscape. But looking at the painting through the lens of Hornel’s original study photographs exposes the distance between the artist’s fantasies and reality. Stitching together different shots, subjects, and sitters, Ceylonese Tea Pickers reflects the colonial mindset of an artist working at the height of the British Empire, with networks across Australia, Glasgow, and numerous colonies.
PRESENTER: Ben...