Selected Writings and Letters from the Estate of Francis Newton Souza(b.1924 d.2002)

withdraw the painting or to suitably clothe the figure for the sake of decency. The polite and artistically minded society of Bombay was quite reconciled to viewing female nudes in Art but a male nude? It was unheard of and a self-portrait in the nude for public viewing was not to be tolerated. As I remember Souza covered the genitals with a piece of cloth there-by attracting greater attention to it.
He was the enfant terrible of the 1950s avowedly bent on destroying every hypocritical convention and prodding a sagging and somnolent sensibility. He was scornful of those who chanted nationalist mantras in an effort to create a nationalist art. Art for Souza was open ended and a world heritage not to be restricted to any one culture. John Berger said of his painting in New Statesman & Nation:
“... he straddles several traditions but serves none, his work lacks grace and has to make up for a lack of certainty with a clumsy, individual power. But at the same time it seems to me to contain an imaginative vision which is truly moving... .”

Souza consciously developed, and continued to nurture an image of himself which distinguished him sharply from the other painters. His rebellious nature showed early signs when he slapped a teacher in the School of Arts in Bombay which led to his expulsion. His self centredness did not blind him to the talent of others. He formed the nucleus of the Progressive Artists Group which initially comprised Gade, Ara, Raza and of course Souza and was later expanded to include Akbar Padamsee, Husain, Gaitonde, Samant and myself. Around 1950, he left for Europe and showed in 1953 with Raza and Padamsee at Gallery Creuz in Paris. This exhibition was a great success and none of these artists ever booked back.
In Paris, Souza would visit friends from Bombay who had settled there. Anil de Silva, now Mme Vigier continued to have an open house for artists and writers. Souza was a frequent visitor. He was in as much need for food as for congenial company. Partly because Anil was now married to a communist and partly because of her own supportive feelings for the underdog, she would speak with didactic vengeance, stressing the obvious as if she had just discovered some great truth. She would continue her lecture lettered with worn out cliches while Souza sat eating. She would then look at him for a reaction. “That’s sentimental moralising rubbish.”
“Is that so? Then may I ask what you think of that beastly Nazi woman who made lamp shades from the skins of her victims in Belsen?”
“That would depend on whether the lampshades were works of art or not.” Anil, quite infuriated by now, slapped Souza right across his face and shouted, “Get out”.
Souza: “I’ll go as soon as I have finished this omelette.”
I don’t think they every met again.
Nothing was more important to him than the exercise of his aesthetic energies. He had managed to date different functions and abilities without their interfering with each other. He was well aware of the moral crises of the day but was not prepared to tackle them by being an activist. He used his aesthetic armoury to impale his subjects. He has left behind an array of mangled and unified subjects—A mad scientist with his beady eyes set far apart like an angry insect, businessmen, their rotting insides recorded on their faces and those morbid men clustering around the body of the dead Pope. Such paintings contain the anger though I doubt that the subjects of his fury will ever be cleansed. There lies the eternal dilemma for the artist. Moral indignation is frozen into aesthetic ecstasy. Souza was never lured into painting succulent delicious paintings. Not even the nudes he painted succumbed to tactile qualities. Many of them are blatantly sexy but even there, the aesthetic response far outweighs the carnal. That he was predisposed to the carnal in his life is well known. His marriages and liaisons must have held a great meaning for one side of him. They may even have triggered a number of paintings that adhered to his aesthetic insights and never declined into objects of sensual pleasure. For all the sexy paintings and drawings he did, I don’t think he ver painted a single ‘dirty’ picture.
He suffered, like some others, from the obsession of being Number One. When there are more than one in the fray, there is trouble. Who did what first and who borrowed from whom, fairly juvenile questions in themselves tend to rupture old associations and friendships. His friendships made in the early years in Bombay broke and there was no communication between old friends. He was still deeply interested in the Indian situation. As was his nature he became very critical of Bharat Bhavan and the faculty of Fine Arts in Baroda without having had any first-hand knowledge of those institutions. He referred to Swamina-than as the one “who paints those silly birds”. But his attitude changed soon after his meeting with Swaminathan . He even painted a portrait of Swaminathan by way of a compliment. He made a speech at Husain’s exhibition at National Gallery of Modern Art suggesting that he could still teach him a thing or two! He saw my mural at Maurya Hotel and said it was not modern enough! He made the same remark at a mixed exhibition at Vadehra Gallery which was showing the works of Husain, Ram Kumar, Akbar Padamsee, Raza, Gaitonde and myself. He had once written specially to me saying how much he liked my ‘Anatomy Lesson’ but was quick to add that it had more to do with his ‘Death of the Last Pope’ than with Rembrandt’s ‘Anatomy Lesson of Dr Tulp’. He was wrong in this reading of my painting but it was hardly a subject for further debate. I found his desire for privacy to be more amusing than annoying. Moreover, I never considered the pursuit of art as some kind of horserace. There was no conflict of interests.
As quite often happens with long lived artists, their earlier work regurgitates into finding forms which carry something of the original experience with modifications. In his later work, the young lovers of 50 years ago appear somewhat older, a little more voluminous and a bit more tender. The treatment too is deceptively simple but could only have come about through a sensitive psyche.
I have not recounted his skill as a writer of pungent and powerful prose, as a poet of great understanding, nor of his incursions into Indian miniature painting in which he involved a young Rajasthani artist. But of all these experiments, his launching into what he called “chemical” paintings was the most exciting. Ordinary magazine advertisements were converted through erasures and additions to take on wholly new dimensions. His spirit was as restless as his intelligence was sharp.
All that now comes to an end. The rich and abundant legacy he leaves behind will transcend our temporal limits and live its own independent existence carrying with it the power and the passion which fashioned it, into a time which is not ours.