F N Souza
(1924 - 2002)
Untitled
Representing the human figure in distorted, and often idealistic, form has been a recurring practice in F N Souza’s career. From the 1940s, the artist has used portraiture, particularly the rendition of heads, as a means to examine and understand human nature. By stripping the subject of recognisable features and appearances, he developed a unique artistic exercise that instead revealed the subject’s character, personality, and even obsessions...
Representing the human figure in distorted, and often idealistic, form has been a recurring practice in F N Souza’s career. From the 1940s, the artist has used portraiture, particularly the rendition of heads, as a means to examine and understand human nature. By stripping the subject of recognisable features and appearances, he developed a unique artistic exercise that instead revealed the subject’s character, personality, and even obsessions and depravations. Souza’s interest in characterisation, self-deprecation, and the human condition manifested in his portraits, which he developed stylistically over the years. The present lot was painted in 1996, during the final decade of Souza’s prolific career. It showcases his shift from the iconic bold lines and trademark cross hatching techniques of his early years to an abstracted representation of the human head through loops and whorls, tubular structures, and systematic distortion. Souza’s ‘futuristic heads’ offered a channel for his observations and social commentary, sometimes symbolising a cynical view of human hypocrisy and decadence, or scathing critiques of the soulless clergy and gentry, and were occasionally even representations of the self. “It is in depicting heads that Souza introduced his most inventive features that bring to the fore his whole painterly arsenal. His use of colour is conventional with thick, ridged strokes of paint squeezed straight from the tube on to the canvas… It is the line that is Souza’s most articulate element and he uses it with great agility to encase the form. It is a sharp, clear, virile boundary that separates negative space from positive space and by its sheer virtuosity delineates the subject.” (Yashodhara Dalmia, “A Passion for the Human Figure,” The Making of Modern Indian Art: The Progressives, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2001, p. 93)
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Lot
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SPRING ONLINE AUCTION: MODERN AND CONTEMPORARY SOUTH ASIAN ART AND ANTIQUITIES
6-7 APRIL 2022
Estimate
Rs 25,00,000 - 35,00,000
$33,335 - 46,670
Winning Bid
Rs 36,45,000
$48,600
(Inclusive of Buyer's Premium)
ARTWORK DETAILS
F N Souza
Untitled
Signed and dated 'Souza 96' (upper right)
1996
Acrylic on canvas
22.5 x 18.5 in (57 x 47 cm)
PROVENANCE Private Collection, Mumbai
Category: Painting
Style: Figurative
ARTWORK SIZE:
Height of Figure: 6'