Important Notice

Known for the highly critical and frequently disfigured portraits of clergymen and members of the upper echelons of society that he painted in the 1950s, it was very rarely that Souza created an image in appreciation of someone. The present lot, a portrait of the revolutionary composer and pianist Igor Stravinsky, seems to be one of the exceptional works that was borne of the artist's admiration rather than his unsympathetic disgust.

... Known for the highly critical and frequently disfigured portraits of clergymen and members of the upper echelons of society that he painted in the 1950s, it was very rarely that Souza created an image in appreciation of someone. The present lot, a portrait of the revolutionary composer and pianist Igor Stravinsky, seems to be one of the exceptional works that was borne of the artist's admiration rather than his unsympathetic disgust.

Created shortly after his seminal 1955 series of drawings, Six Gentlemen of our Times, this portrait also exemplifies the artist's intricate cross-hatching and confident line. Although Souza has constructed Stravinsky's features with his characteristic cross-hatching and the subject's bespectacled eyes are placed high in his forehead, the face in this drawing is not that of a 'soulless' socialite or corrupt businessman, nor is it "a ridged, rocky terrain bounded by lines and petrified by its own violence" (The Making of Modern Indian Art: The Progressives, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 2001, p. 83). Rather, in Souza's portrayal, the composer comes across as an intelligent individual, held in high regard by his peers.

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