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Lot 80

 

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F N Souza’s experiments with heads and the human form began in the late 1940s and underwent a transformation in style over the years. Art historian Yashodhara Dalmia observes, “It is in depicting heads that Souza introduced his most inventive features that bring to the fore his whole painterly arsenal… [They] were multiple, complex, and imbued with the spirit of provocative defiance of conventions.” (Yashodhara Dalmia, “A Passion for the Human... F N Souza’s experiments with heads and the human form began in the late 1940s and underwent a transformation in style over the years. Art historian Yashodhara Dalmia observes, “It is in depicting heads that Souza introduced his most inventive features that bring to the fore his whole painterly arsenal… [They] were multiple, complex, and imbued with the spirit of provocative defiance of conventions.” (Yashodhara Dalmia, “A Passion for the Human Figure,” The Making of Modern Indian Art, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2001, pp. 93-94)

Often likened to Bacon by critics, Souza displayed an affinity for the grotesque. By the 1960s, the rigidity of his figures gave way to ravaged forms with loops, whirls, and tubular shapes in lieu of recognisable features, as seen in the present lots 79 and 80 from 1966. In the artist’s words, “I have not only dehumanised man into two lines cross-hatched on either side, but I have also reduced the cosmos to a dot.” (Dalmia, p. 94) Neither realistic nor wholly abstract, the subjects of the present lots have shed all traces of humanity, their disfiguration revealing their suppressed violence and animal urges that were hidden until now under the guise of social norms and conventions. Souza breaks all conventions in these works, letting his line move freely in a raw, spontaneous form of expression that offers insight into his personal life and beliefs. Edwin Mullins notes that despite being part of a strong personal pictorial idiom, the artist’s heads hold a universal appeal. He remarks, “Figurative art presents no problem for Souza because he has succeeded in creating images which are entirely personal, yet recognisable at the same time. (Edwin Mullins, Souza, London: Anthony Blond Ltd., 1962, p. 36)

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