Decoding FN Souza

Francis Newton Souza was always an enfant terrible. Right from the time he got expelled from St. Xavier’s College in Mumbai for making pornographic graffiti on bathroom walls, to being ousted from Sir J. J. School of Art for joining the Quit India Movement, Souza, undeniably, was scripting his fate, which lead towards him becoming one of the greatest Indian Modernist painters. Angry and conflicted in life as in his paintings, the stout Goan was a founding member of Bombay Progressive Artists’ Group which, with the likes of Raza and Husain, broke away from the conventional forms of painting and opened the gates for avant-garde internationalist modernism to seep through the Indian canvases. In what would be a befitting display of this maverick’s artistic journey, a city-based gallery Akara Art is showcasing 11 of his works, spanning through four decades from the ’60s to the ’90s.

Celebrating 10 years of the gallery that’s nestled in the art-district of Colaba, Puneet Shah, the curator of the exhibition and the director of the art gallery is on a mission to hold 10 exhibitions in a series to chart the modern contemporary Indian art movement. Beginning with an already concluded show Perhaps It Will Fly Away, If I Get Up containing the works of Amrita Sher-Gil, the second in line Luminous Solitude is an ode to Souza. “Souza’s contributions are so important to the trajectory of Indian Modern art that made it imperative to not miss him,” gushes the director.

The Foreman, Oil on canvas, 1961

The exhibition that has on display Souza’s paintings on canvases and paper contains works from some of the most significant creative phases of his life. A painting The Foreman with his trademark grotesque convoluted face, and another untitled with a dramatic English Hampstead landscape forms his works from his rebellious ’60s. “Right from the ’50s, he was making these really rough brushstrokes on oil on board, and the figures were very convoluted and distorted which kind of continues in the ’60s. So if you see the two heads that we have from the ’60s, they are very distorted and dark, but yet thought-provoking in a way, and somewhere more composed,” Puneet describes.

Untitled,ink and watercolor on paper, 1940s

For the artist, who once quoted, ‘Renaissance painters painted men and women making them look like angels. I paint for angels to show them what men and women really look like,’ Souza’s unabashed confidence made him a rebel that he was. Stitching contradictions in his work, Souza’s figurative art, international yet rooted, repelling yet moving, aggressive and yet erotic, melancholic yet exciting, dark and yet humorous, were birthed from his own rebellion. Explaining what this rebellion was, Puneet explains, “It’s basically the rebel within, the constant fight with himself, with his non-willingness to accept what his peers are doing and all of that coming onto his work. A simple thing of really heavy and powerful dark lines in that thick impasto brush is also like a conscious state of rebellion.”

Untitled (self portrait), Oil on canvas, 1985

Further, there is a rather exciting still life from 1965, which marks Souza’s departure from his iconic black on black impasto works. “Through 1965, predominantly, he was doing these black on black works. The one that you see in our show is the one when he is just coming out of black on black phase, wherein you see hints of impasto of white in the jars, and yellowish-green in the fruits which kind of takes him into his early palettes years,” reveals the curator.

Moving on to the ’80s, a stellar self-portrait from 1985 makes an appearance, the significance of which is not only marked by it being a rare portrait on oil on canvas but also because it was made by the artist for his 60th birthday. “For anyone who knows Souza, will find it very interesting to have this in their collection, and it is something so unlike Souza. It is such a pretty picture; it does not resonate with Souza’s works. That’s the irony of it,” gushes the art aficionado who mentions that the use of the vibrant colour palette reflects that point in Souza’s life where he is at peace with himself.

Although, the highlight of the collection is, undoubtedly, one of the earliest known works of Souza that had first emerged in Christie’s auction in 2010 when his estate was sold. Made in 1940, the ink on paper rendition of a giant Cyclops from the Greek mythology was the 16-year-old Souza’s adolescent step towards the seminal art legacy that he was destined to build.
—The exhibition is ongoing at Akara Art Gallery till June 22