S oon after India gained independence from the British in 1947, a group of Indian artists in Mumbai declared their independence from traditional Indian art forms and the Bengal School of Art. They called themselves the “Progressive Artists Group”. The artists wanted to be the avant-garde in the international and Indian art world. This is a French phrase, pronounced Av-on-guard . It means they wanted to create art in new and experimental ways. One of the founders of this group was an artist called Francis Newton Souza.
Souza was born in a Roman Catholic family in 1924 in the village of Saligao, Goa. His early childhood was full of difficulties. His father and sister died when he was young, and he got sick with smallpox when he was five. He survived but the scars of the illness were apparent on his face. Souza and his mother moved to Mumbai where he studied at St. Xavier’s College.
Even as a young man, Souza followed his own path. He was expelled from St Xavier’s and then joined Sir J.J. School of Art. In 1945, he was suspended from college for participating in the Quit India movement, but this did not deter him. In 1949, Souza moved to London. At first, he struggled to support himself and worked as a journalist. He was a talented writer and his essays were printed in many magazines. In a few years, he had established himself as a serious artist. His paintings were sold out in a London art gallery exhibition. His work got positive comments from an English art critic called John Berger. Souza moved to New York, in 1967, where he received the Guggenheim International award.
Famous yet misunderstood
Although Souza was honoured as an artist in the western world, Indians were slower to understand and appreciate his paintings. This is because, he painted in the Expressionist style. He was influenced by Pablo Picasso and other Cubist artists. Expressionism is about painting emotions, not reality. Paintings can be shocking with ordinary objects shown twisted out of shape. Many of Souza’s paintings had weird-looking human figures with large heads, several eyes and multiple hands. For example, in his painting called Crucifixion , Jesus Christ looks scary as a black figure with eyes high on his forehead and huge teeth, different from the gentle pictures of Christ that we see.
Souza painted and drew pictures of women, men, the Goan landscapes that he loved, and subjects from the Roman Catholic Church. In 2008, his painting Birth was sold, and became the most expensive Indian painting fetching Rs.11.2 crores. He often used fine lines drawn in ink and shaded his pictures with layers of pen strokes. This method of shading is called cross-hatching.
Francis Souza died in Mumbai in 2002 at 78. His paintings are on display in Indian and International art galleries such as the National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi and the Tate Gallery in London.
