Important Notice

Lot 89

The human figure, and in particular the female nude, dominated Souza’s works throughout his career. Purposeful immodesties, these nudes ignore conventional morality and lash out at Souzas reception of the inflexibility and self-righteousness of Catholicism, the religion he grew up with. As the artist put it in the 1992 article “Naked Women and Religion” in Debonair magazine, “As a Roman Catholic youth, born in Goa, I was familiar with priests... The human figure, and in particular the female nude, dominated Souza’s works throughout his career. Purposeful immodesties, these nudes ignore conventional morality and lash out at Souzas reception of the inflexibility and self-righteousness of Catholicism, the religion he grew up with. As the artist put it in the 1992 article “Naked Women and Religion” in Debonair magazine, “As a Roman Catholic youth, born in Goa, I was familiar with priests bellowing sermons from pulpits against ‘sex’ and ‘immodesty’ particularly addressed to women, making them stricken with guilt. The Catholic men stood cocky in their suits and ties agreeing with the priests, lusting for naked women inwardly. Hypocrites!” (Yashodhara Dalmia, The Making of Modern Indian Art: The Progressives, Oxford University Press, 2001, p. 92)

Souza’s treatment of the nude and the erotic, however, greatly varied, especially in his canvases from the early 1960s. While some of his women were rendered as dark and disfigured, lashing out with claws and fangs, others, with their legs splayed out, put their hyper-sexuality on flamboyant display, still others were nothing but graceful and full of innocence. This variance reflects the artist’s multiple sources of inspiration, which included the voluptuous forms of Indian temple art, the early works of artists like Gauguin and Picasso, and also the perspective and stance found in Spanish Romanesque portraits. This piece from 1961 is one of Souza’s more demure nudes, gentle yet suggestive. As always, the line plays a definitive role in this canvas, creating and containing the subject’s simple, gracious features. Though her frontal posture and firmly set face seem unnervingly confident, this edge is softened by the vulnerability that the artist has painted into his subject’s eyes. Standing with her back to a deep red, richly textured brocade, this sublime nude communicates in silent, subtle, overtures.

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