Francis Newton Souza

(India, 1924-2002)

Untitled (Head)

Footnotes

Provenance
Property from a private collection London; acquired from the artist circa 1960s, thence by descent;
Bonhams, Islamic & Indian Art, 25th October 2007, lot 311.
Acquired from the above; Property from a private collection, London.

"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." - F.N. Souza, 1962.

Painted in 1962, a period marking a pivotal shift in Souza's artistic development, this masterpiece, Untitled (Head), stands as a defining moment in his career, bridging the visual languages of his 1950s and 1960s periods. Created during his celebrated Gallery One years, the work embodies both an aesthetic breakthrough and a testament to Souza's rise as a leading figure in contemporary art.

After leaving India for London in 1949, Souza endured several years of hardship before establishing himself as a vital voice within postwar British art. His perseverance culminated in widespread recognition by the late 1950s, notably with his first major solo exhibition at Gallery One in 1959. Organised by Victor Musgrave, this landmark show marked Souza's emergence on the international stage. Musgrave's vision proved instrumental in shaping the global recognition of modern Indian art. He was among the first to exhibit artists such as Sayed Haider Raza, Akbar Padamsee, Tyeb Mehta, Paritosh Sen, Avinash Chandra, Anwar Jalal Shemza, Ram Kumar, Laxman Pai, Maqbool Fida Husain, and Souza himself. An audacious and pioneering gesture that redefined the visibility of Indian modernists abroad.

Throughout his career, Souza sustained an unyielding commitment to experimentation. His portraits of the 1950s are distinguished by assertive cross-hatched lines, while by the early 1960s his approach had evolved toward radical distortion, transforming faces into complex, mutated forms. The present lot stands as a compelling testament to this evolution, an image where intensity, audacity, and emotion converge.

"I have created a new kind of face... I have drawn the physiognomy way beyond Picasso, in completely new terms. And I am still a figurative painter... [Picasso] stumped them and the whole of the western world into shambles. When you examine the face, the morphology, I am the only artist who has taken it a step further." (F. N. Souza quoted in Y. Dalmia, 'A Passion for the Human Figure', The Making of Modern Indian Art: The Progressives, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 2001, p. 94).

As theatre director Ebrahim Alkazi, who lived with Souza in London during the 1950s, observed "Souza has despised artists who have merely played with the fire of art, warmed their hands over its embers. For he himself has stepped into the flames... His fundamental aim is to destroy art as it is commonly understood." (E. Alkazi, Souza's Seasons in Hell Art Heritage, Vol. 6, New Delhi, 1986–87, p. 76).

Untitled (Head) captures Souza's artistic inferno. The painting channels his inner turmoil and relentless drive into a primal, distorted portrait, where exaggerated, disjointed features and heavy cross-hatching reject traditional aesthetics. Aggressive black lines and a stark palette transform the face into a grotesque icon, a visceral commentary on suffering and the raw physicality of existence.

Here, Souza's exploration of the human condition reaches an uncompromising intensity. It conveys anguish and postwar existential anxiety while offering a critique of societal hypocrisy. The painting presents a profound inquiry into identity and offers a daring critique of the role and meaning of art.