“Souza’s admiration for Bacon is apparent in such a painting as…Two Women on Sofa, 1966, which can be compared to Bacon’s picture Seated Figure, 1961 (Tate Collection). With these pictures it is as if Souza was presenting his art as the heterosexual counterpart to Bacon’s. It is certainly the case that the themes of eroticised violence and brutality that have often been attributed to Bacon were also applied to Souza, and indeed both men had a taste for self-dramatisation which played on these perceptions. Yet while neither would deny that these themes existed in their work, both would contest the moralising reading which cast them as nihilists. In fact both claimed that their work was ultimately about the significance of life, and that the visual intensity of their paintings was intended to jolt the nervous system like an electric shock into a visceral awareness of life”

– Toby Treeves, Bacon Freud Mehta Souza, Grosvenor Vadehra, 2007, p.11

“Souza’s admiration for Bacon is apparent in such a painting as…Two Women on Sofa, 1966, which can be compared to Bacon’s picture Seated Figure, 1961 (Tate Collection). With these pictures it is as if Souza was presenting his art as the heterosexual counterpart to Bacon’s. It is certainly the case that the themes of eroticised violence and brutality that have often been attributed to Bacon were also applied to Souza, and