Important Notice

Souza's interest in characterisation, self-deprecation and the human condition manifested in his portraits, which he developed stylistically over the years-from iconic bold lines and his trademark crosshatching technique in the beginning (as seen in the present lot), to an eventual progression to loops and whorls, tubular structures, and systematic distortion (lot 27). His early figurative works, especially the iconic 'Heads' of the 1950s, set... Souza's interest in characterisation, self-deprecation and the human condition manifested in his portraits, which he developed stylistically over the years-from iconic bold lines and his trademark crosshatching technique in the beginning (as seen in the present lot), to an eventual progression to loops and whorls, tubular structures, and systematic distortion (lot 27). His early figurative works, especially the iconic 'Heads' of the 1950s, set the precedent for a unique style-one that peeled away the appearance and revealed instead his subjects' character, personality, and even their obsessions and depravations. "Many of the tendencies that became distinct in Souza's later years could be detected in these early works. The thick, bounding line, the distortion of the figure and the dislocation of facial characteristics had already begun to mark his style." (Yashodhara Dalmia, "A Passion for the Human Figure," The Making of Modern Indian Art: The Progressives, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2001, p. 80)

Souza's "futuristic heads" offered a channel for his observations and social commentary, sometimes symbolising a cynical view of human hypocrisy and decadence, or scathing critiques of the soulless clergy and gentry-and were occasionally even representations of the self. According to British writer and critic Edwin Mullins, who wrote a seminal monograph on the artist in 1962 and also owned works by Souza in his private collection, "...because his images are clearly intended to be human, one is compelled to ask why his faces have eyes high up in the forehead, or else scattered in profusion all over the face; why he paints mouths that stretch like hair combs across the face, and limbs that branch out like thistles. Souza's imagery is not a surrealist vision - a self-conscious aesthetic shock - so much as a spontaneous re-creation of the world as he has seen it, distilled in the mind by a host of private experiences and associations." (Edwin Mullins, Souza, London: Anthony Blond Ltd., 1962, p. 39)

Around the time that he painted the present lot, Souza had steadily begun to achieve due recognition and patronage for his art. He had found a wealthy benefactor in Harold Kovner, representation at Victor Musgrave's Gallery One, and approval with art critics. Writing about his paintings of heads, Andrew Forge observed that "Somewhere behind any serious portrait painting there is a wish to gain command of a person... But in Souza you can see the real thing operating, you can see him closing in on his images as though they could save his life, or backing away from them as though they could kill him. Souza himself has said that he has made of his art 'a metabolism. I express myself freely in paint in order to exist.'" (Andrew Forge, "Round the London Galleries," The Listener, 28 November 1957)

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