Important Notice

Lot 53

Throughout his career, Souza remained compelled to draw and paint the human figure, in an effort to document both the beauty and depravity he saw in his race. These portraits thus took on the mantle of sharp social commentary, frequently centered on the dual issues of sex and religion, pleasure and suffering, which absorbed the artist throughout his career. The immediacy of figurative art attracted Souza, who was torn between the beliefs he was... Throughout his career, Souza remained compelled to draw and paint the human figure, in an effort to document both the beauty and depravity he saw in his race. These portraits thus took on the mantle of sharp social commentary, frequently centered on the dual issues of sex and religion, pleasure and suffering, which absorbed the artist throughout his career. The immediacy of figurative art attracted Souza, who was torn between the beliefs he was brought up with and the hypocritical practices of individuals and institutions that clouded them. Communicating this schism to his viewers was thus both catharsis and social service, exposing the Janus-faced nature of those in positions of power.

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" (rpt. in Yashodhara Dalmia, The Making of Modern Indian Art: The Progressives, Oxford University Press, 2001, p. 77).

Often, Souza extended his visual critique of organized religion to include members of the upper echelons of society, who, in his opinion, were as hypocritical and soulless as their counterparts in the clergy. "A growing skill in expressing the grotesque allowed Souza to dwell on the cunning manipulation by the rich, thereby extending his liturgy of the decadent…The denouement of the upper classes, with their underlying violence masked by vestments of polite behaviour, is complete…Deploying his faces, as it were, to expose the larger hypocrisy of nations…the essential condition of human beings, of men without redemption." (Ibid., p. 82-84).

In this epic oil on board, irreverently titled Titian`s Grandfather, Souza paints a portrait of a nobleman wearing a plush black coat and heavy gold cross around his neck. One of Souza`s strongest and most critical portraits of the mid 1950`s, this work is perhaps the first of his portraits inspired by the artist Titian`s work. However, where Titian painted pleasing portraits of his liege and other patrons, Souza demonized such figures, from the artist`s relatives to the Pope, showing that beneath their expensive vestments and ornate symbols of faith, they were no more than greedy, common criminals. In the catalogue for his 1961 show at Gallery One, he wrote, "I use aesthetics instead of knives and bullets to protest against stuffed-shirts and hypocrites" (as quoted in Edwin Mullins, Souza, Anthony Blond, London, 1962, p. 25).

This dichotomy of appearance and reality is gloriously depicted in the present lot. Although the subject`s noble, bearded visage is pierced by the arrows of his saint-like suffering on behalf of his fellow men, his half-hidden right hand firmly clutches what appears to be a money-pouch, reflecting covert self-indulgence, most probably at the cost of those he supposedly serves and suffers for.

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