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Lot 27

 

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Explaining Souza’s penchant for figuration, his biographer Edwin Mullins notes that, “Souza is one of the few important living artists who still holds faith with this language of imagery. Great painters have abandoned figurative painting because what they wished to paint could not be expressed in terms of images which the eye could recognise. Certainly it is true that the most striking achievements made in painting during the past half century... Explaining Souza’s penchant for figuration, his biographer Edwin Mullins notes that, “Souza is one of the few important living artists who still holds faith with this language of imagery. Great painters have abandoned figurative painting because what they wished to paint could not be expressed in terms of images which the eye could recognise. Certainly it is true that the most striking achievements made in painting during the past half century have been, if not actually abstract, then in the direction of abstraction. Souza’s particular strength lies not in his refusal to admit the importance of abstract art, but in his capacity to find in figurative painting everything that he needs; so much so, that he cannot understand why any other artist can do anything else. ‘To paint abstract paintings is quite impossible.’ Souza has written, ‘it’s like trying to paint thin air and those who think they do are fooling themselves. They claim to be going “beyond”. Beyond what? Beyond zero is minus. They say the spectator must bring his own imagination to work upon their painted surfaces, which means that the spectator should do all the work. It’s another instance of the Emperor’s clothes. And if this is “art”, then I’m the little boy who shouts ‘it’s naked!’” (Edwin Mullins, Souza, Anthony Blond Ltd., London, 1962, p. 36).

In the present lot, a portrait from the mid 1960s, Souza uses the figure of an old man to contemplate his own mortality. Though he is dressed in an intricately patterned and colourful tunic, the subject’s face is sallow and pock-marked, and folds of flesh hang about his thin neck. Reminiscent of the artist’s self-portraits from the same period, the subject’s face in this piece reflects Souza’s own childhood attack of smallpox that left his face blemished for the rest of his life.

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