Francis Newton Souza (1924-2002)

Oil on board with thick application of paint. Lot visible in catalogue illustration appears to have been recently cleaned and varnished. Greater tonal variations and colors deeper in original than catalogue illustration. Good overall condition.
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Throughout the 1950's and 60's Souza produced several paintings depicting Saints that combined religious imagery and satire, which David Sylvester termed as, 'a caricature of Byzantine icons.'

The format used by Souza in this work is one that he used repeatedly, that of a head and torso painted on a plain background. Such composition draws from religious iconography, a format that was adopted by Renaissance artists such as Titian, whose works Souza would have seen firsthand at the National Gallery in London. However, although the influence of Byzantine painting and the Old Masters are evident, the finished painting is completed in Souza's own unique style. As Edwin Mullins has noted, the strong black outlines that enclose vibrant colours are reminiscent of Rouault's work and like Rouault they are influenced by the startling luminosity of stained glass, which in this instance adds to the covertly religious sentiment of the painting.

'Souza's treatment of the figurative image is richly varied. Besides the violence, the eroticism and the satire, there is a religious quality about his work which is medieval in its simplicity and in its unsophisticated sense of wonder. Some of the most moving of Souza's paintings are those which convey a spirit of awe in the presence of a divine power - a God, who is not a God of gentleness and love, but rather of suffering, vengeance and of terrible anger. In his religious work there is a quality of fearfulness and terrible grandeur which even Rouault and Sutherland have not equalled in this century'.' (Edwin Mullins, F.N. Souza, London, 1962, p. 40).