Important Notice

"I use aesthetics instead of knives and bullets to protest against stuffed-shirts and hypocrites." -F. N. Souza in Words and Lines

At a time when Indian art was striving to balance issues of identity and internationalism, Souza emerged as a powerful and unabashed voice in modern art. A fearless iconoclast, his art developed its bold idiom owing to his traumatic childhood and troubled relationship with the Roman Catholic Church. ... "I use aesthetics instead of knives and bullets to protest against stuffed-shirts and hypocrites." -F. N. Souza in Words and Lines

At a time when Indian art was striving to balance issues of identity and internationalism, Souza emerged as a powerful and unabashed voice in modern art. A fearless iconoclast, his art developed its bold idiom owing to his traumatic childhood and troubled relationship with the Roman Catholic Church.

Following a savage attack of smallpox when he was very young, he found inspiration in the pock-marks and used them on visages of those in power to comment on the hypocrisy that plagued them.Thick, angry lines and hasty cross-hatching became Souza`s signature style for landscapes and figuration. While human figures dominated his oeuvre, the present lot is part of a series of headsthat made an appearance in the early 1960s. Here, the head and bust are obscurely delineated from the background with thick, black lines contouring them. The face stands out starkly against the garband the backdrop. The impasto appears to be multiple layers of paint laid over each other, with some colours surfacing from beneath, lending a sombre texture and feel to the work. Compared tohis other works, this visage appears less distorted, though the eyes, nose, teeth and cheekbones are rendered with a few hasty and short strokes that obscure its features.

In an act of subversion, Souza explains his reasons for painting so: "I started using more than two eyes, numerous eyes...on my paintings and drawings of human figures when I realised what it meantto have the superfluous and so not need the necessary. 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 mydisposal" (the artist quoted in "Notes: F. N. Souza", Gallery One Exhibition Catalogue, London, 1961, pg.1).

This work also coincides with Souza`s phase of success after nearly six years of difficulty following his move to London in 1949. Between 49 and 55, his paintings were rejected by galleries in London,and he was sustained by his wife, and occasional patronage. In 1955, Victor Musgrave offered him a one-man exhibition at Gallery One, which coincided with his autobiography Nirvana of a Maggotbeing published. This show was an immense success and Souza's reputation grew steadily. With increasing patronage and a slew of solo shows at Gallery One, Mullins recollected the mostimpressive show as the one at the new venue of Gallery One in North Audley Street in 1961-the same year this work was made.

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