Important Notice

“Why should I be sparse and parsimonious when not only this world but worlds in space are open to me? I have everything to use at my disposal.” - F N SOUZA

F N Souza has experimented with the genre of landscapes throughout his career. From the watercolour paintings of his native Goa to the abstracted depictions of European scenery from the 1950s and ‘60s, Souza’s landscapes serve as some of the most truthful and captivating records... “Why should I be sparse and parsimonious when not only this world but worlds in space are open to me? I have everything to use at my disposal.” - F N SOUZA

F N Souza has experimented with the genre of landscapes throughout his career. From the watercolour paintings of his native Goa to the abstracted depictions of European scenery from the 1950s and ‘60s, Souza’s landscapes serve as some of the most truthful and captivating records of the artist’s meditations and life.

Souza’s occupation with European landscapes began with his move to London in 1949. Raised in Goa, the artist relocated to London in hopes of better patronage and an unprejudiced audience. Although his early years in the city were marked by financial difficulties and inadequate recognition and success as an artist, his career witnessed a dramatic turn with his first solo show at Gallery One and the publishing of his autobiographical essay Nirvana of a Maggot in 1955.

The period between 1955 and the mid-1960s is noted as the most creative and prosperous in the artist’s career. “Souza held five one-man exhibitions at Gallery One, the fifth and most impressive one in 1961...Souza’s paintings between the periods 1955 to 1963 are now among the most sought after.” (Kishore Singh ed., Continuum: Progressive Artists’ Group, New Delhi: DAG, 2011, p. 317)

During this period, Souza travelled across Europe and developed what has come to be his signature style - an unrestrained format of painting that fused motifs and artistic elements from various schools including Renaissance and Romanesque art, Western Modernism, African tribal art as well as classical Indian art. Although his most celebrated works from this period included figurative compositions that were often erotically charged or grotesque, he also produced a large body of landscapes that were inspired by Europe’s spirited and historic cities.

Painted in 1964, the present lot belongs to a series of landscapes painted by Souza during his time in post-war England. Although the painting depicts the British county of Cumberland, the countryside scene, packed with lopsided buildings and rambled branches, bears close resemblance to the landscape of his native Goa. By using dark thick lines, frenzied brushstrokes and a heavy impasto technique, the painting reflects the styles of European expressionist painters, such as Chaim Soutine and Georges Rouault.

While Souza’s landscapes from the 1960s echo the same post-war gloom and tension captured in his landscapes from the previous decade, they appear different in technique as a result of “the artist’s new-found sobriety [which] allowed him the freedom to move away from previous techniques and repetitive themes to inculcate a manner of direct emotional painting.” (Kishore Singh ed., Continuum: Progressive Artists’ Group, New Delhi: DAG, 2011, p. 317)

According to art historian Yashodhara Dalmia, “Souza’s landscapes seem to be driven by a cataclysmic force, which wreaks havoc. Most of these cityscapes following, at first, a simple rectilinear structure, which later, in the 1960s, gives way to an apocalyptic vision. The tumbling houses in their frenzied movement are also symbolic of all things falling apart, of the very root of things being shaken, of a world of the holocaust and thalidomide babies...of nature gone awry, of a demonic force behind the appearance of things.” (Yashodhara Dalmia, The Making of Modern Indian Art: The Progressives, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2001, p. 93)

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