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拍品专文
Francis Newton Souza’s male ‘heads’ and portraits from the mid and late 1950s are considered among his most seminal paintings. These works explore the nuances of figuration and offer the artist’s withering commentary on the clergy and gentry. In paintings such as the present lot, “the darkened image of Man emerges, virulently depicted, with malignancy of character pervading and eroding his features into strangely disturbing ornamental patterns. This horrific formalization has no precedent in contemporary imagery and remains convincing and potently revealing whenever Souza chooses to strike” (J. Burr, ‘Of Our Time’, Art News & Review, London, May 1955).
It was during this period that the male clerical figure with distinctive, mutated features emerged in Souza’s paintings. As the critic Geeta Kapur noted, “[Souza] fashioned for his purpose a distinctive type of head for which he is perhaps best known. It is a face without a forehead, bearded and pockmarked, eyes bulging from the side of the skull [...] a mouth full of multiple sets of teeth” (G. Kapur, Contemporary Indian Artists, New Delhi, 1978, p. 2). The present lot, painted in 1958, is one of the most extreme examples of the phenomenon Kapur describes. In addition to these features, the subject, most likely a priest or cleric, wears a brocaded tunic of blue, brown and pink. Through such markers of opulence, Souza underlines one of the facets of what he saw as the hypocrisy of the Church, its rituals and its representatives. Here, the subject’s nose is elongated almost into a beak, and flashes of pink, yellow and orange interrupt the black crosshatched brushstrokes surrounding his dark, penetrating eyes. It is almost as if the head in this painting is mutated ad absurdum by the artist, effectively de-anthropomorphizing his subject.
This painting also underlines Souza’s masterful navigation of the narrow line between abstracting a figure and surrendering to total abstraction. Here, angular coiled forms rendered in Souza’s trademark style are used as repeated formal devices; they transform the chalky backdrop into a signature brocade and the figure’s clothing into the ornate tunics of the priests he painted with both ire and admiration. For Souza, the figure was anchor, protagonist, hero and villain. In his monograph on the artist, Edwin Mullins observed, “Souza’s particular strength lies not in his refusal to admit the importance of abstract art, but in his capacity to find in figurative painting everything that he needs; so much so, that he cannot understand why any other artist can do anything else. ‘To paint abstract paintings is quite impossible.’ Souza has written, ‘it's like trying to paint thin air and those who think they do are fooling themselves. They claim to be going ‘beyond’. Beyond what? Beyond zero is minus. They say the spectator must bring his own imagination to work upon their painted surfaces, which means that the spectator should do all the work. It's another instance of the Emperor's clothes. And if this is ‘art’, then I’m the little boy who shouts "it's naked!’” (E. Mullins, Souza, London, 1962, p. 36).
Today, Souza is recognized as a leading member of the London School, inextricably connected with the close-knit bohemian artistic circles of the city in the 1950s. Nadia Adam is the daughter of painter and architect Siecander (Siggy) Adam, who was active in London’s international artistic community during the 1950s and 1960s, particularly the circles surrounding the New Vision Centre Gallery and Gallery One. Mr. Adam exhibited at the New Vision Centre Gallery in 1959, and his family home in Notting Hill Gate became a gathering place for artists and other creative figures. Souza was a regular visitor to the Adam home, often spending time with Mr. Adam painting, talking and drinking. As Nadia’s mother later recalled, there was sometimes rather more drinking than painting. The present lot was gifted by Souza to Nadia on the occasion of her birth and hung for many years in the Adam family’s dining room, remaining one of her prized possessions for more than six decades.
It was during this period that the male clerical figure with distinctive, mutated features emerged in Souza’s paintings. As the critic Geeta Kapur noted, “[Souza] fashioned for his purpose a distinctive type of head for which he is perhaps best known. It is a face without a forehead, bearded and pockmarked, eyes bulging from the side of the skull [...] a mouth full of multiple sets of teeth” (G. Kapur, Contemporary Indian Artists, New Delhi, 1978, p. 2). The present lot, painted in 1958, is one of the most extreme examples of the phenomenon Kapur describes. In addition to these features, the subject, most likely a priest or cleric, wears a brocaded tunic of blue, brown and pink. Through such markers of opulence, Souza underlines one of the facets of what he saw as the hypocrisy of the Church, its rituals and its representatives. Here, the subject’s nose is elongated almost into a beak, and flashes of pink, yellow and orange interrupt the black crosshatched brushstrokes surrounding his dark, penetrating eyes. It is almost as if the head in this painting is mutated ad absurdum by the artist, effectively de-anthropomorphizing his subject.
This painting also underlines Souza’s masterful navigation of the narrow line between abstracting a figure and surrendering to total abstraction. Here, angular coiled forms rendered in Souza’s trademark style are used as repeated formal devices; they transform the chalky backdrop into a signature brocade and the figure’s clothing into the ornate tunics of the priests he painted with both ire and admiration. For Souza, the figure was anchor, protagonist, hero and villain. In his monograph on the artist, Edwin Mullins observed, “Souza’s particular strength lies not in his refusal to admit the importance of abstract art, but in his capacity to find in figurative painting everything that he needs; so much so, that he cannot understand why any other artist can do anything else. ‘To paint abstract paintings is quite impossible.’ Souza has written, ‘it's like trying to paint thin air and those who think they do are fooling themselves. They claim to be going ‘beyond’. Beyond what? Beyond zero is minus. They say the spectator must bring his own imagination to work upon their painted surfaces, which means that the spectator should do all the work. It's another instance of the Emperor's clothes. And if this is ‘art’, then I’m the little boy who shouts "it's naked!’” (E. Mullins, Souza, London, 1962, p. 36).
Today, Souza is recognized as a leading member of the London School, inextricably connected with the close-knit bohemian artistic circles of the city in the 1950s. Nadia Adam is the daughter of painter and architect Siecander (Siggy) Adam, who was active in London’s international artistic community during the 1950s and 1960s, particularly the circles surrounding the New Vision Centre Gallery and Gallery One. Mr. Adam exhibited at the New Vision Centre Gallery in 1959, and his family home in Notting Hill Gate became a gathering place for artists and other creative figures. Souza was a regular visitor to the Adam home, often spending time with Mr. Adam painting, talking and drinking. As Nadia’s mother later recalled, there was sometimes rather more drinking than painting. The present lot was gifted by Souza to Nadia on the occasion of her birth and hung for many years in the Adam family’s dining room, remaining one of her prized possessions for more than six decades.