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Lot 45

 

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"Black is the most mysterious of all colours. Renoir found it impossible and said a spot of black was like a hole in the painting. I cannot agree: colour is now disturbing in a bad way."
- F N SOUZA, 1966

The present lot is part of a series of 'black on black' works that Souza executed in the mid1960s, painted exclusively in the thick black impasto usually reserved for his bold lines. A radical, but brief departure from... "Black is the most mysterious of all colours. Renoir found it impossible and said a spot of black was like a hole in the painting. I cannot agree: colour is now disturbing in a bad way."
- F N SOUZA, 1966

The present lot is part of a series of 'black on black' works that Souza executed in the mid1960s, painted exclusively in the thick black impasto usually reserved for his bold lines. A radical, but brief departure from his oeuvre at the time, this series represents the artist's technical brilliance as a draughtsman, as well as his constant desire to push the boundaries of his practice. In these paintings, "The substance is black, not the smooth black of pure sensation but a very palpable black, its solidity created by thick brush strokes in different directions and by a considerable range of tones according to the paint's direction in relation to the light." (Dennis Duerden, "F N Souza," Arts Review, London, 14 May 1966, p. 215)

It is likely that in challenging traditional notions of colour and painting, Souza's 'black on black' paintings were influenced by the Pinturas Negras series of Spanish artist Francisco de Goya, whose work he encountered at the National Gallery in London and admired greatly, and the Blue period paintings of Pablo Picasso, an artist to whom he was often compared. This series perhaps also drew from the experimental monochromatic paintings of conceptual artist Yves Klein - who was represented by some of the same galleries as Souza in London and Paris - and his exhibition Propositions Monochromes (1957) and Le Vide (1958). "You have to admire Souza's courage. He comes from India into a post war Britain and paints black on black. To paint without colour: was he brave or crazy a genius or a fool? Or both? Souza was like a tightrope walker teetering between madness and inspiration. The Black on Blacks represent the moment when you take your breath and wonder when the man will plunge. This work is not for the faint of heart. There is no safety net. It's scary stuff. (Kito de Boer quoted in Zehra Jumabhoy, F N Souza: Black on Black, London: Grosvenor Gallery, 2013, p. 37)

In addition, Souza used a range of subtle, yet discernible colours underneath the overt black one, such as the dark maroon undertones seen in the present lot. This attempt to create tonal differences by using colours to build upon the painted surface resulted in a relief-like texture. Unlike his usual figurative works that were symbolic of his excoriating views of society characterised by distorted features, the present lot depicts a far more softer countenance of a woman, albeit with the classic gaze reminiscent of paintings seen in Spanish Romanesque art that the artist was prone to adapting.

According to Zehra Jumabhoy, this series was also perhaps motivated by Souza's personal quest to address politics of race and identity. It seemed to be on the cusp of a dialogue about racial exclusion... After all, 1960s Britain was a dark place for most painters... If his earlier and later paintings were characterised by thick black lines, they also revelled in colour: acid yellows, harsh blues, bloody reds. By the last 1950s, and early '60s, however, Souza's images were swamped by sinister shades... Perhaps too, Souza's own circumstances as a man of colour,' instigated him to tune into an even gloomier facet of Post-War Britain: discrimination. (Jumabhoy, pp. 910)

The black on black' series is considered to one of the peak innovations of Souza's artistic career, unequivocally asserting his mastery of line and impasto within the bounds of a single colour.

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