F N Souza
(1924 - 2002)
Head (Weeping Woman)
The immediacy of figurative art always attracted Souza, who, throughout his career, remained compelled to draw and paint men and women in an effort to record both the beauty and the decadence of his race. In a 1986 interview the artist stated, "The advantage a figurative painter has over the abstract artist is sheer impact: the brute force of an expressionist painting of a large, distorted, suggestive naked lady can overwhelm the bravest...
The immediacy of figurative art always attracted Souza, who, throughout his career, remained compelled to draw and paint men and women in an effort to record both the beauty and the decadence of his race. In a 1986 interview the artist stated, "The advantage a figurative painter has over the abstract artist is sheer impact: the brute force of an expressionist painting of a large, distorted, suggestive naked lady can overwhelm the bravest abstract painting - no doubt about it - because humans will be humans…The other most important advantage figurative art has over non- figurative art is that humans can transmit energy to humans through images whereas abstract symbols like the swastika, for example, must be charged with a lot of meaning by tradition before it can be taken to be potent" (as quoted in Yashodhara Dalmia, The Making of Modern Indian Art: The Progressives, Oxford University Press, 2001, p. 77). The present lot represents Souza's interpretation of Pablo Picasso's well known series of works from 1937 featuring the weeping woman from his epic mural Guernica, painted earlier that year. Painted thirty years later, in 1967, this work is probably based on Picasso's last and most elaborate interpretation of the theme, a portrait currently in the collection of the Tate Gallery, which Souza would likely have encountered when he lived in London. However, while Picasso's Weeping Woman, based on Dora Maar his mistress and muse at the time, evokes universal suffering and human tragedy, Souza's subject, with her skull-like visage, embodies the artist's critical view of the powerful and members of high society. Despite the divergence in their objectives, both artists acknowledged that their portraits were the result of the almost primal vision of reality they enjoyed, which pierced the superficiality of everyday life. As Picasso explained, "For years I've painted her in tortured forms, not through sadism, and not with pleasure, either; just obeying a vision that forced itself on me. It was the deep reality, not the superficial one" (as quoted in Brigitte Léal, "Portraits of Dora Maar", Picasso and Portraiture, Harry N. Abrams, New York, 1996, p. 396).
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Lot
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F.N.SOUZA | MUMBAI, LIVE
11 SEPTEMBER 2013
Estimate
Rs 10,00,000 - 15,00,000
$15,625 - 23,440
Winning Bid
Rs 48,00,000
$75,000
(Inclusive of Buyer's Premium)
ARTWORK DETAILS
F N Souza
Head (Weeping Woman)
Signed and dated in English (upper left)
1967
Oil on board
24 x 24 in (61 x 61 cm)
Category: Painting
Style: Figurative
ARTWORK SIZE:
Height of Figure: 6'