Important Notice

The present lot, a disfigured nude from the artist’s 1965 series of intricate works in gouache, clearly displays the dualities that informed Souza’s unique body of work and guarantee his place in the annals of Modern and Post-War Art.

As Edwin Mullins, Souza’s first biographer, explains in a 1964 catalogue essay, “It is [the] built-in conflict in Souza’s work which supplies its restless, fighting quality and what I have called its... The present lot, a disfigured nude from the artist’s 1965 series of intricate works in gouache, clearly displays the dualities that informed Souza’s unique body of work and guarantee his place in the annals of Modern and Post-War Art.

As Edwin Mullins, Souza’s first biographer, explains in a 1964 catalogue essay, “It is [the] built-in conflict in Souza’s work which supplies its restless, fighting quality and what I have called its ‘dedicated vulgarity’. It is as if each painting were both an act of hate and an act of love… Escapism and catharsis. The surface… becomes a battleground on which are fought out the fears and passions of one man’s experience. On the dark side: the holocaust, horror of the flesh, bodies distorted by fall-out or thalidomide, the weight of sin and evil, sexual longing and despair, a sense of the ludicrous and the disgusting. Against this: the wonderment, the celebration of the flesh and of fulfillment, a delight with the naked grace of a woman’s body… and awe at the proximity and terrible power of God” (F. N. Souza: The Human and the Divine Predicament, Grosvenor Gallery Exhibition Catalogue, 1964, not paginated).

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