Modern & Contemporary South Asian Art

Modern & Contemporary South Asian Art

View full screen - View 1 of Lot 27. Untitled (Nude).

Property from an Important Corporate Collection

Francis Newton Souza

Untitled (Nude)

Auction Closed

March 21, 06:10 PM GMT

Estimate

20,000 - 30,000 USD

Lot Details

Description

Property from an Important Corporate Collection

Francis Newton Souza

1924 - 2002

Untitled (Nude)


Gouache on paper

Signed and dated 'Souza 1946' upper left, inscribed 'NEWTON' lower left center and further dated '1946' on reverse

22 x 14 ⅞ in. (56 x 37.9 cm.)

Painted in 1946

Sotheby's New York, Contemporary Indian Paintings from the Chester and Davida Herwitz Charitable Trust, Part II, 3 April 1996, lot 108 
P. Sheth, Dictionary of Indian Art & Artists, Mapin Publishing Pvt. Ltd., 2006, illustration p. 337

'[Francis Newton Souza] has shocked many who cannot imagine a green or blue red human body... who cannot stand a simplification intended to intensify an experience, or a distortion of proportions suggesting a sense of earthbound heaviness... who cannot face the frank statement of sex which is sublimated not by suppression but by association and interplay with the experience of the soul.'


- Dr Hermann Goetz, 1949


('Rebel Artist: Francis Newton', Marg, vol. 3, no. 3, Bombay, July 1949, p. 39)


Souza’s depictions of women are multi-layered, ranging from the maternal to the carnal, the pacifist to the demonic. A host of emotional responses arise from his female nudes, oscillating between the two thematic pillars of his artistic practice: religion and eroticism.


Formerly in the iconic Chester and Davida Herwitz collection, the current lot is a rare and early nude by the Indian modernist. The figure's anatomy is provocatively exaggerated, with her crudely formed limbs and features rendered in richly saturated blue-green tones and outlined with Souza's trademark black lines. This unnatural and impossible use of color boldly contrasts with the vivid pinks, reds and yellows of the mottled background, and the red, erotic accents of color on the figure's lips, breasts and genitalia. 


This work reveals the foundational elements of Souza's inimitable imagery and iconography, yet its particular pitch of color, precision of line and delicacy of paint application form distinct, finite features, ones that were not seen again in Souza's work. The eroticism of the painting is at once overt and understated, and the depiction of her body simultaneously inhuman yet alluring, notably devoid of the monstrous, grotesque features found in Souza's ensuing figurative work. This lot represents an exceptional study of the workings of the young painter's artistic practice and his unique mind.