Important Notice

In F N Souza’s eyes, man-himself included-was “by his very nature unredeemable”. (F N Souza, “My Friend and I”, Words & Lines, London: Villers Publications Ltd., 1959, p. 26) Writing in his diary about the condition of the common man he remarked, “And if God sends his Son again you will have to break him in his very bones so that He will not rise again. But think of the Lord Mayors and the Bishops and the RSPCA officials and all the... In F N Souza’s eyes, man-himself included-was “by his very nature unredeemable”. (F N Souza, “My Friend and I”, Words & Lines, London: Villers Publications Ltd., 1959, p. 26) Writing in his diary about the condition of the common man he remarked, “And if God sends his Son again you will have to break him in his very bones so that He will not rise again. But think of the Lord Mayors and the Bishops and the RSPCA officials and all the little good-mongers, official, ecclesiastical and civil, running up and down the city streets, and you up there on the top floor in a single furnished room, smoking, standing at the window, expressionless city man that you are, your suffering is far more complex than the obviously simple tortured expression of one crowned with thorns, and impaled with nails.”(Souza, “Notes From My Diary”, 1959, p. 20)

Although Souza relied on many among the elite for patronage, he reserved particular contempt for the powerful whom he believed concealed their greed and grotesque impulses behind suits and other markers of respectability. Through his art, he sought to strip away this veneer and expose their true nature by radically reinventing their visages “with eyes placed on the forehead, gnashing teeth for a mouth and pullulating lines which create an extraordinarily mobile flickering surface.” (Yashodhara Dalmia, “The Underbelly of Existence”, The Demonic Line, New Delhi: DAG, 2000, p. 4) The subject of the present lot is similarly unsentimental and affirms his reputation as an “image-maker” rather than an aesthete. (Edwin Mullins, Souza, London: Anthony Blond Ltd., 1962, p. 33) Though the figure remains recognisably human, its features are deliberately distorted: a lopsided nose, a contorted mouth, and eyes reduced to sharp slashes of paint. By rejecting naturalism and reimagining the human form through his own vision, Souza creates a powerful psychological portrait rather than a literal likeness.

The confidence of his draughtsmanship is strikingly evident in this work. Through the raw impulsiveness of his brushwork, which lends his compositions a dynamic energy, Souza brings the figure to life as a menacing presence that confronts the viewer with a malevolent, unrepentant sneer. As Geeta Kapur notes, “His paintings are really drawn in paint, the line predominating over all other elements and serving to outline, encase and define an image; serving also to provide tonal variations (through the same technique of cross-hatching as in drawings) and to give the painting a structural and surface unity.” (Geeta Kapur, “Francis Newton Souza: Devil in the Flesh”, Contemporary Indian Artists, New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House Pvt Ltd, 1978, p. 34)

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