Important Notice

Lot 9

1956 was a seminal year for Souza, following his 1955 successful debut into the London arts and literary fraternities – an achievement won after much struggle. His first solo show at Gallery One was very well received, as was his first publication, a semi-autobiographical essay, Nirvana of a Maggot. Riding on the crest of this wave of successes, the artist’s output in the mid to late 1950s comprised some of his best works, including several... 1956 was a seminal year for Souza, following his 1955 successful debut into the London arts and literary fraternities – an achievement won after much struggle. His first solo show at Gallery One was very well received, as was his first publication, a semi-autobiographical essay, Nirvana of a Maggot. Riding on the crest of this wave of successes, the artist’s output in the mid to late 1950s comprised some of his best works, including several important portraits like this piece.

Mirroring both his dry sense of humor, and a more serious reflection on the social forces that influence the human condition, Souza’s portraits offer us insight not only on the artist’s life, but are also a significant source of disfigured his social commentary. This work, Man in a Red Coat, may seem quite benign on first inspection; nevertheless, as is the case with his other paintings from the period, the relevance of this piece derives from Souza’s personal experiences. Bestowing him with a mask-like, robotic countenance, Souza robs his subject of all autonomy. The glaring red of the man’s coat scorns the inanimate red-tape that has come to exercise much control over everyday life, suggesting the reduction of humans to pawns blindly navigating a bureaucratic maze. Containing his figure within thick, dark outlines, the artist emphasizes his irreverence for such an existence, so different from his own.

This portrait also a comments on the ‘soullessness’ of the upper classes, a theme that the artist pursued in his work in the 1950s. According to Yashodhara Dalmia, “A growing skill in expressing the grotesque allowed Souza to dwell on the cunning manipulation by the rich, thereby extending his liturgy of the decadent…The d?nouement of the upper classes, with their underlying violence masked by vestments of polite behaviour, is complete…Deploying his faces, as it were, to expose the larger hypocrisy of nations…the essential condition of human beings, of men without redemption.” (The Making of Modern Indian Art: The Progressives, Oxford University Press, 2001, p. 82-84).

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