Francis Newton Souza

FRANCIS NEWTON SOUZA, BORN ON 12 APRIL 1924, WAS EXPELLED FROM SCHOOL, THEN FROM HIS COLLEGE—SIR J. J. SCHOOL OF ART, BOMBAY—AND LATER, AS HE INSISTED ON SAYING, FROM HIS OWN COUNTRY.

Born in Goa, Souza's Catholic mother brought him up to be a priest, but he showed early signs of rebellion that would become an integral part of his life. While studying in Bombay, he joined the Communist Party but soon left it. He even abandoned the Progressive Artists’ Group, of which he was the founder member and spokesperson, to pursue a career in Europe. He would shift continents—living and tasting success in London in the 1950s and ’60s—before settling in New York.

Souza found his own blunt, extreme style by combining the expressionism of Rouault and Soutine with the spirit of cubism and the sculptures of classical Indian tradition. He combined fierce lines with cruel humour. Nudes, landscapes, and portraits—he painted in every style and in every medium, even inventing ‘chemical alterations’, a method of drawing with the use of chemical solvent on a printed page without destroying the glossy surface. This helped him to experiment with the layering of multiple imagery.

Widely exhibited and feted around the world, Souza’s pugnacious nature and work failed to win him recognition in the country of his birth, where he was noted but never rewarded. In the later years, he started spending more time visiting India, and passed away in Mumbai on 28 March 2002.