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Lot 50

 

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“The bare-breasted, unashamedly sexual women made by Souza are by now well-known. Yet with each encounter we are faced afresh with their voluptuous sexuality. A fact often overlooked is the tenderness, bordering on a caress with which the feminine contours are drawn.”
(Yashodhara Dalmia, “The Underbelly of Existence,” The Demonic Line, DAG: New Delhi, 2001, p. 6)

While several of his modernist peers turned to abstraction,... “The bare-breasted, unashamedly sexual women made by Souza are by now well-known. Yet with each encounter we are faced afresh with their voluptuous sexuality. A fact often overlooked is the tenderness, bordering on a caress with which the feminine contours are drawn.”
(Yashodhara Dalmia, “The Underbelly of Existence,” The Demonic Line, DAG: New Delhi, 2001, p. 6)

While several of his modernist peers turned to abstraction, F N Souza remained devoted to figuration for most of his career. The female nude was a cornerstone of his practice that evolved stylistically across his oeuvre. It was through these tender nudes, unabashedly erotic forms, and grotesque, distorted figures that he expressed his views on sexuality, religion, and the human condition.

Among Souza’s earliest inspirations were the sculptures of Khajurahao and Mathura, and South Indian bronzes, which he studied alongside the works of European masters in books he found at local libraries following his expulsion from the J J School of Art, Bombay, in 1944. He was greatly influenced by those “mighty temples and pillars and many a carved figure of girls wearing nothing but smiles more enigmatic that even the Mona Lisa could manage”. (The artist quoted in Edwin Mullins, Souza, London: Anthony Blond Ltd, 1962, p. 38) In 1948, he travelled with fellow Progressive Artists’ Group member M F Husain to Delhi where they attended an exhibition of Indian antiquities and classical art at the Viceregal Lodge. Recalling the impact of the show on them, the artists' friend, theatre director Ebrahim Alkazi said, “I remember Souza and Husain came to Delhi to see and suddenly their eyes were opened to the richness of Indian art, particularly in sculpture.” (Ebrahim Alkazi, Ebrahim Alkazi: Directing Art - The Making of a Modern Indian Art World, Parul Dave-Mukherji ed., Ahmedabad: Mapin Publishing in association with Art Heritage, 2016, p. 81)

Souza’s figures of the 1950s and 1960s are among his strongest and best-regarded works. The present lot was painted in 1950, a year after he left India for Post-War London. His initial years in the city were bleak as he struggled to break into its art scene. A strong influence of classical Indian art is seen in the buxom figure set in a frontal pose with ornaments and long braided hair, an artistic choice perhaps indicative of a longing for home. Remarks Edwin Mullins, “The emphasis on definitive line to trace the twist and movement of the human body; the impersonal, ritual treatment of sensuality; the tendency to stylise objects so that they become stripped of incidental detail; and the intuitive understanding of how to treat a virtually flat surface in order to create the effect, not of depth, but of movement; these are all important components in Souza’s paintings and they stem more or less directly from classical Indian art.” (Mullins, p. 38) Though voluptuous in form, this work is a softer, more sensuous nude than many of his more salacious figures of the following years.

As a founding member of the Progressive Artists’ Group, Souza sought to develop a form of modernism that reconciled Indian art traditions with the emerging artistic practices and movements of the West. His craft was informed by several diverse influences and the present lot exemplifies art critic John Berger’s observation in a 1955 article for The New Statesman that “...he straddles several traditions but serves none”. (Yashodhara Dalmia, “A Passion for the Human Figure,” The Making of Modern Indian Art, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2001, p. 88) The heavy black outlines and bright colours are suggestive of the stained glass of churches from his home state of Goa, elements of African and Primitive art, and French artist Georges Rouault’s religious imagery, which he came across while in London. His use of tubular shapes also reminds us of the works of Fernand Léger.

The unusual, dual perspective that displays the front and back of the figure in a single image reveals the strong influence of Picasso, whom Souza admired and who by the mid-1930s was “experimenting with portraits in a new perspective where the image was visible simultaneously from the front and as a profile. However, with regard to this particular painting, Souza has explained specifically that ‘this is a front to back aesthetic argument with the front still showing. You could call it a non-verbal language… some puritans have suggested that my nudes must be kept behind curtains…’” (Aziz Kurtha, “Origin and Influence,” Francis Newton Souza: Bridging Western and Indian Modern Art, Ahmedabad: Mapin Publishing, 2006, p. 58)

With bold imagery, eclectic influences, and incisive draughtsmanship, the present lot is important proof of the robust foundation upon which Souza built the exceptional iconography he is remembered for today.

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