Page 93 - AstaGuru Modern Odyssey

Lot No. 63

F N SOUZA
1924-2002

UNTITLED
48 x 36 in (121.9 x 91.4 cm)
Oil and mixed media on board
1968
Signed & Dated : Top Left

` 4,00,00,000 - 6,00,00,000 | $ 487,805 - 731,707

Exhibited: ‘Picasso / Souza’ at Vadehra Art Gallery, New Delhi,
17th December, 2011- 25th January, 2012.

Published: ‘Picasso / Souza’ by Grosvenor Vadehra, 2011, pg. 35.

Provenance: Property from a collection based in Mumbai.

An enigma who was known to challenge conventions through
his art, F N Souza executed the imagery of human heads and
faces that were far from being realistic or sentimental in nature.
A theme that continued to appear throughout his career,
Souza’s paintings of heads and human faces were highly
distorted. Although they may come across as raw and visceral,
the artist executed these works with extreme intricateness.
F N Souza’s paintings express defiance and impatience with
conviction, and he shuns the banality of the everyday life
expectancies of society. His works have periodically reflected Cover of the publication with the artwork
the influence of various schools of art: the folk art of his native illustrated.
Goa, the full-blooded paintings of the Renaissance period, the
religious fervour of the Catholic Church, the landscapes of the
18th and 19th-century European art and the path-breaking
paintings of the moderns. He was a born rebel and his work
always challenged the ordinary conception and norms of
beauty.

F N Souza shifted bases multiple times, first to London and
later to New York. A revered artist, he exhibited his works at
prestigious venues. His works are in the collections of the Tate
Gallery, London, the National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi
and the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, New Delhi, to name a
few. Apart from being a painter he was also a ferocious writer
and experimented with mediums such as chemical agents on
printed paper and later painted over them. The artist passed The artist in his studio with the presented lot in the
away in March 2002. background.