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Francis Newton Souza (1924-2002)
Francis Souza was an India-born artist known for his expressive and erotic imagery, especially of women. Like Picasso, Souza painted the female figure in ways that emphasized its earthiness and sexual magnetism. With an instinctive sense of line and a modernist interest in distortion he created unforgettable paintings of both sacred and profane subjects. A lifelong artist, he once told friends that he remembered first making art while in his mother’s womb.
Born Francisco Victor Newton de Souza in Saligao, Goa, India—which was a Portuguese Catholic colony at the time—Souza’s father José Victor Aniceto Piedade de Souza was a strict man: a teetotaling English teacher. After his father’s death—when he was only 3 months old—Francis moved with his mother, Lilia Maria Cecilia (Antunes) de Souza, to Mumbai where he grew up and attended a Catholic High School. Rebellious and precocious Souza took an interest in European art books and magazines and was expelled by the age of 15 for drawing pornographic scenes on the walls of the school lavatory.
Several years later, While enrolled in an art school, he and 21 other students were suspended for joining Mahatma Gandhi’s Quit India movement, which demanded an end to British rule in India. The same day he was suspended Souza made a breakthrough painting titled “The Blue Lady” by squeezing paint directly from a tube onto a sheet of plywood and spreading it with a palette knife. After making it, he felt a new sense of independence and never returned to art school.
In 1947, just months after India gained its independence, Souza founded the “Progressive Artist’s Group” which included Maqbool Fida Husain and Sayed Haider Raza. These radical artists experimented with Western art styles including Expressionism and Art Brut. When a 1948 exhibition at a frame shop his work brought complaints from Mumbai’s Goan community Souza and his wife emigrated to London.
In London his work came to the attention of the poet Stephen Spender who in turn introduced him to the collector Peter Watson. In 1954 he was included in a prestigious group show at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, launching his career. When Stephen Spender published Souza’s autobiographical essay “Nirvana of a Maggot” in Encounter magazine a leading dealer gave him a show which sold out. In 1958 he was one of five artists shortlisted for the 1958 Guggenheim International Award for his 1955 painting “Birth,” which depicted his mistress Liselotte posing naked while pregnant with their first daughter Keren. The noted critic John Berger praised Souza’s work and called it “eclectic.”
Encouraged by rising sales and acclaim, Souza confidently expanded the range of his subjects to include both sacred and profane images, portraits and Christian religious scenes. His slashing and energetic use of lines and fusion of Indian, African and Western modern styles was seen as daring and exciting. His 1959 “Crucifixion,” which was purchased by the Tate Gallery in London, depicted a jagged black Christ with matted hair tangled in thorns.
Souza liked to experiment with paints and mediums and is credited as being the first notable Indian painter to work in acrylic in the early 1960s. His “black paintings,” first shown in 1966 were executed in an almost entirely black palette. After moving to New York in 1967 Souza returned to bright colors and began a series of cityscapes and landscapes that depicted his American travels. Living both in India and the United States, after divorcing his second wife Barbara he took a series of mistresses and also frequented red light districts. In 1987 a retrospective of Souza’s work travelled from New Delhi to Mumbai. Souza also exhibited in Karachi in 1988 and in New York in 1998.
Over time he fathered five children: Shelley, Karen, Francesca, Anya and Patrick. After a period of critical neglect, Souza died of a heart attack in March of 2002 while visiting Mumbai. He was 77 years old.
Francis Souza was an India-born artist known for his expressive and erotic imagery, especially of women. Like Picasso, Souza painted the female figure in ways that emphasized its earthiness and sexual magnetism. With an instinctive sense of line and a modernist interest in distortion he created unforgettable paintings of both sacred and profane subjects. A lifelong artist, he once told friends that he remembered first making art while in his mother’s womb.
Born Francisco Victor Newton de Souza in Saligao, Goa, India—which was a Portuguese Catholic colony at the time—Souza’s father José Victor Aniceto Piedade de Souza was a strict man: a teetotaling English teacher. After his father’s death—when he was only 3 months old—Francis moved with his mother, Lilia Maria Cecilia (Antunes) de Souza, to Mumbai where he grew up and attended a Catholic High School. Rebellious and precocious Souza took an interest in European art books and magazines and was expelled by the age of 15 for drawing pornographic scenes on the walls of the school lavatory.
Several years later, While enrolled in an art school, he and 21 other students were suspended for joining Mahatma Gandhi’s Quit India movement, which demanded an end to British rule in India. The same day he was suspended Souza made a breakthrough painting titled “The Blue Lady” by squeezing paint directly from a tube onto a sheet of plywood and spreading it with a palette knife. After making it, he felt a new sense of independence and never returned to art school.
In 1947, just months after India gained its independence, Souza founded the “Progressive Artist’s Group” which included Maqbool Fida Husain and Sayed Haider Raza. These radical artists experimented with Western art styles including Expressionism and Art Brut. When a 1948 exhibition at a frame shop his work brought complaints from Mumbai’s Goan community Souza and his wife emigrated to London.
In London his work came to the attention of the poet Stephen Spender who in turn introduced him to the collector Peter Watson. In 1954 he was included in a prestigious group show at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, launching his career. When Stephen Spender published Souza’s autobiographical essay “Nirvana of a Maggot” in Encounter magazine a leading dealer gave him a show which sold out. In 1958 he was one of five artists shortlisted for the 1958 Guggenheim International Award for his 1955 painting “Birth,” which depicted his mistress Liselotte posing naked while pregnant with their first daughter Keren. The noted critic John Berger praised Souza’s work and called it “eclectic.”
Encouraged by rising sales and acclaim, Souza confidently expanded the range of his subjects to include both sacred and profane images, portraits and Christian religious scenes. His slashing and energetic use of lines and fusion of Indian, African and Western modern styles was seen as daring and exciting. His 1959 “Crucifixion,” which was purchased by the Tate Gallery in London, depicted a jagged black Christ with matted hair tangled in thorns.
Souza liked to experiment with paints and mediums and is credited as being the first notable Indian painter to work in acrylic in the early 1960s. His “black paintings,” first shown in 1966 were executed in an almost entirely black palette. After moving to New York in 1967 Souza returned to bright colors and began a series of cityscapes and landscapes that depicted his American travels. Living both in India and the United States, after divorcing his second wife Barbara he took a series of mistresses and also frequented red light districts. In 1987 a retrospective of Souza’s work travelled from New Delhi to Mumbai. Souza also exhibited in Karachi in 1988 and in New York in 1998.
Over time he fathered five children: Shelley, Karen, Francesca, Anya and Patrick. After a period of critical neglect, Souza died of a heart attack in March of 2002 while visiting Mumbai. He was 77 years old.