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Lot Essay
[Souza] is one of the most remarkable young artists of India, not as an accomplished master who already has found his own style, but as an experimenter of an intensity rare in this country [...] always provoking and trying out new techniques and new interpretations [...] Whatever Francis Newton’s final style may be, in whatever manner it will be integrated into the all-Indian tradition, his contribution will be an intensity and a fierce fire which the soft escapism of modern Indian art has generally missed [...] From where he is fetching his techniques, does not matter. For all real art starts only where an artist ceases to follow anybody, and dissolves all those lessons in the fire of his own vision.
- Hermann Goetz, 1949
Painted in 1949, the year Francis Newton Souza arrived in London from Bombay, Woman with Lamp is possibly among the first works the artist completed in his new home and marks one of the most decisive turning points in his career. This important painting combines memories of his homeland and the influence that Indian miniature painting and sculpture had on his early work with the modernist ideas he was beginning to absorb within the bustling bohemian world of postwar London.
Born in Goa, Souza moved with his mother to Bombay as a child, enrolling first at St. Xavier’s High School and then at the prestigious Sir J.J. School of Art. However, his rebellious personality clashed with the strict Jesuit education system and the formal teaching methods of the art school, which remained heavily influenced by colonial British styles. As a result, he was expelled from both institutions. These formative experiences proved decisive in shaping the artist’s career and remain fundamental to understanding his iconography. Edwin Mullins, who published the first monograph on the artist in 1962, succinctly captures this complex background, writing, “An Indian painter, brought up a strict Roman Catholic under Portuguese colonial rule, later a member of the Communist Party and now living in London: these are the barest details about one of the most gifted and original modern artists. Those writers on art who even today look upon all new painting as the result of age-old cultural roots, must be rather baffled by such a history, for it bears witness to a great number of contradictory influences which make nonsense of conventional ideas of tradition” (E. Mullins, Souza, London, 1962, p. 5).
Unlike the female figures that would soon populate his oeuvre, the subject of the present painting is neither hyper-sexualized nor grotesquely disfigured. Instead, Souza depicts the woman in an almost formal, ceremonial context. Her hair is tied high, a feature typical of his early depictions of Indian women and markedly different from many of the Western women he would paint in the years that followed. Almond eyed and elegantly proportioned, she wears a round-necked, cuffed gown dappled with color, perhaps recalling the coat of many colors that Jacob gave his son Joseph in the Old Testament. The protagonist lights the lamp with a taper, the small flame casting the scene into a riot of color. Although domestic in form, the lamp also opens the image to devotional associations, recalling both the lamps of Indian miniature painting and the ritual use of light in Catholic and Jewish traditions.
This subtle, sensuous and tender portrayal of an Indian woman also reveals the influence that the temple sculpture of Mathura and Khajuraho had on Souza’s work. His paintings of female figures from the late 1940s overtly reference these sculptural traditions as well as ancient South Indian bronze sculpture. After encountering examples of Indian antiquities and classical art at an exhibition in Delhi in 1948, Souza came to regard them as among the finest expressions of India’s artistic heritage. As the critic Yashodhara Dalmia noted, “Souza’s early works, which were inadvertently imbibing these influences, were also incorporating the ‘Primitive’ via the mediation of the West. In reclaiming the Primitive, Souza was virtually reinventing his own art, and that is where his strength lay” (Y. Dalmia, The Making of Modern Indian Art: The Progressives, New Delhi, 2001, p. 98).
In Woman with Lamp, this mediated encounter is apparent in the subject’s stylized profile and classical form, reminiscent of Indian temple sculpture, as well as in Souza’s bold use of primary colors. Nevertheless, this painting remains unusually tender. Rather than the anxiety, violence or erotic charge that would characterize many of his later female subjects, its mood is one of quiet contemplation.
Hermann Goetz’s account of Souza’s early practice, published in July 1949, the year of the present painting, recognized a softer sentiment in Souza’s oeuvre, describing “pictures of the greatest delicacy of feeling, of shy sweetness and idyllic harmony”, even when governed by “a mighty decorative pattern and a colour like flaming fire” (H. Goetz, ‘Rebel Artist Francis Newton’, Marg, Vol. 3, No. 3, Bombay, July 1949, p. 39). Goetz’s words seem particularly apposite for Woman with Lamp, where the subject’s quiet concentration is held within Souza’s emphatic contours and masterfully illuminated field of colors.
Painted during the lean years before Souza achieved critical and commercial acclaim, or gained a foothold within London’s artistic and literary circles, this painting captures both the excitement of his new surroundings and a powerful nostalgia for India. During his first years in London, Souza struggled commercially to make inroads in his newly adopted home. Nevertheless, the cultural character of the city fascinated him. An accomplished and erudite writer from an early age, he chronicled his first encounters with England in the serialized publication Stanzas from Zen in 1950, writing, “On the 8th of August we touched Tilbury Docks London after 18 days at sea. […] Good Lord! But at least I was permitted to disembark. Come what may. I was not refused entry into England as Henry Miller was, because he had no money. I had £5 in cash. Besides, my mother had assured me a monthly allowance of £15 to £20 for about six months. By then I hoped to stand on my own feet. Six months is a long time and many things could happen in the meanwhile. But this is not a ‘success story’” (Artist statement, ‘Stanzas from Zen II: I Land in London’, Thought, 17 November 1950).
In these early months in London, when Woman with Lamp was likely painted, Souza was for the first time experiencing a longing for the home he was so eager to leave only some months earlier. However, it was not Bombay he missed the most, but the Goa of his childhood. “In London now, I have a quaint nostalgia for Goa. In fact my appreciation of it seems even exaggerated” (Artist statement, ‘Stanzas from Zen I: I Flee the Flea-Circus’, Thought, 10 November 1950). It was perhaps Souza’s own initial cultural dislocation and gradual adaptation to his new surroundings that led to the exquisite intersection of traditions we see in Woman with Lamp. Significantly, the artist retained the painting for many years in his own collection, taking it with him when he moved from London to New York in 1967. It remained with the artist until the late 1990s, when he finally parted with it only a few years before his death. In many ways, Woman with Lamp manifests Souza’s Goan Catholic upbringing, his Indian heritage and his experience as an artist who spent most of his working life outside his beloved homeland.
- Hermann Goetz, 1949
Painted in 1949, the year Francis Newton Souza arrived in London from Bombay, Woman with Lamp is possibly among the first works the artist completed in his new home and marks one of the most decisive turning points in his career. This important painting combines memories of his homeland and the influence that Indian miniature painting and sculpture had on his early work with the modernist ideas he was beginning to absorb within the bustling bohemian world of postwar London.
Born in Goa, Souza moved with his mother to Bombay as a child, enrolling first at St. Xavier’s High School and then at the prestigious Sir J.J. School of Art. However, his rebellious personality clashed with the strict Jesuit education system and the formal teaching methods of the art school, which remained heavily influenced by colonial British styles. As a result, he was expelled from both institutions. These formative experiences proved decisive in shaping the artist’s career and remain fundamental to understanding his iconography. Edwin Mullins, who published the first monograph on the artist in 1962, succinctly captures this complex background, writing, “An Indian painter, brought up a strict Roman Catholic under Portuguese colonial rule, later a member of the Communist Party and now living in London: these are the barest details about one of the most gifted and original modern artists. Those writers on art who even today look upon all new painting as the result of age-old cultural roots, must be rather baffled by such a history, for it bears witness to a great number of contradictory influences which make nonsense of conventional ideas of tradition” (E. Mullins, Souza, London, 1962, p. 5).
Unlike the female figures that would soon populate his oeuvre, the subject of the present painting is neither hyper-sexualized nor grotesquely disfigured. Instead, Souza depicts the woman in an almost formal, ceremonial context. Her hair is tied high, a feature typical of his early depictions of Indian women and markedly different from many of the Western women he would paint in the years that followed. Almond eyed and elegantly proportioned, she wears a round-necked, cuffed gown dappled with color, perhaps recalling the coat of many colors that Jacob gave his son Joseph in the Old Testament. The protagonist lights the lamp with a taper, the small flame casting the scene into a riot of color. Although domestic in form, the lamp also opens the image to devotional associations, recalling both the lamps of Indian miniature painting and the ritual use of light in Catholic and Jewish traditions.
This subtle, sensuous and tender portrayal of an Indian woman also reveals the influence that the temple sculpture of Mathura and Khajuraho had on Souza’s work. His paintings of female figures from the late 1940s overtly reference these sculptural traditions as well as ancient South Indian bronze sculpture. After encountering examples of Indian antiquities and classical art at an exhibition in Delhi in 1948, Souza came to regard them as among the finest expressions of India’s artistic heritage. As the critic Yashodhara Dalmia noted, “Souza’s early works, which were inadvertently imbibing these influences, were also incorporating the ‘Primitive’ via the mediation of the West. In reclaiming the Primitive, Souza was virtually reinventing his own art, and that is where his strength lay” (Y. Dalmia, The Making of Modern Indian Art: The Progressives, New Delhi, 2001, p. 98).
In Woman with Lamp, this mediated encounter is apparent in the subject’s stylized profile and classical form, reminiscent of Indian temple sculpture, as well as in Souza’s bold use of primary colors. Nevertheless, this painting remains unusually tender. Rather than the anxiety, violence or erotic charge that would characterize many of his later female subjects, its mood is one of quiet contemplation.
Hermann Goetz’s account of Souza’s early practice, published in July 1949, the year of the present painting, recognized a softer sentiment in Souza’s oeuvre, describing “pictures of the greatest delicacy of feeling, of shy sweetness and idyllic harmony”, even when governed by “a mighty decorative pattern and a colour like flaming fire” (H. Goetz, ‘Rebel Artist Francis Newton’, Marg, Vol. 3, No. 3, Bombay, July 1949, p. 39). Goetz’s words seem particularly apposite for Woman with Lamp, where the subject’s quiet concentration is held within Souza’s emphatic contours and masterfully illuminated field of colors.
Painted during the lean years before Souza achieved critical and commercial acclaim, or gained a foothold within London’s artistic and literary circles, this painting captures both the excitement of his new surroundings and a powerful nostalgia for India. During his first years in London, Souza struggled commercially to make inroads in his newly adopted home. Nevertheless, the cultural character of the city fascinated him. An accomplished and erudite writer from an early age, he chronicled his first encounters with England in the serialized publication Stanzas from Zen in 1950, writing, “On the 8th of August we touched Tilbury Docks London after 18 days at sea. […] Good Lord! But at least I was permitted to disembark. Come what may. I was not refused entry into England as Henry Miller was, because he had no money. I had £5 in cash. Besides, my mother had assured me a monthly allowance of £15 to £20 for about six months. By then I hoped to stand on my own feet. Six months is a long time and many things could happen in the meanwhile. But this is not a ‘success story’” (Artist statement, ‘Stanzas from Zen II: I Land in London’, Thought, 17 November 1950).
In these early months in London, when Woman with Lamp was likely painted, Souza was for the first time experiencing a longing for the home he was so eager to leave only some months earlier. However, it was not Bombay he missed the most, but the Goa of his childhood. “In London now, I have a quaint nostalgia for Goa. In fact my appreciation of it seems even exaggerated” (Artist statement, ‘Stanzas from Zen I: I Flee the Flea-Circus’, Thought, 10 November 1950). It was perhaps Souza’s own initial cultural dislocation and gradual adaptation to his new surroundings that led to the exquisite intersection of traditions we see in Woman with Lamp. Significantly, the artist retained the painting for many years in his own collection, taking it with him when he moved from London to New York in 1967. It remained with the artist until the late 1990s, when he finally parted with it only a few years before his death. In many ways, Woman with Lamp manifests Souza’s Goan Catholic upbringing, his Indian heritage and his experience as an artist who spent most of his working life outside his beloved homeland.