‘FN Souza: Father of Modern Indian Art’ is an ode to the enfant terrible of Indian art

Reverent and yet irreverent; pornographic and yet gentle — Francis Newton Souza’s art was a mixed bag of contradictions. All his life, he ruffled feathers with his unabashed art, and yet he will always be at the zenith of modern art in India. ‘FN Souza: Father of Modern Art in India’ — published by Dhoomimal Art Gallery, his primary gallery for four decades — is an ode to his genius.

The book brings together a range of artists, writers and friends to paint a character sketch of Souza. Artist Krishen Khanna recalls an early exhibition he reviewed for the Marg magazine in 1951; Souza’s friend Jag Mohan lets us into his emergence in the 1940s; artist Jatin Das remembers the prolific letter writer he was. There are interviews by art critics Yashodhara Dalmia and Vinod Bhardwaj, throwing a rare light on his persona in his own words. A large part of the book is dedicated to a decade-wise journey of his art.

Born in Goa in 1924 and raised in Bombay, Souza lost his father and sister within the first year of his birth. He grew up a wayward child, painting nudes to the chagrin of those who witnessed it. With only a mother for family, his was a “desperate struggle against suffocating poverty, social isolation, narrow-mindedness”. As founder of the Progressive Artists Group, he showed new direction to a newly-Independent nation struggling to find its expression. Defiance and impertinence were second nature to him, which manifested on his canvases as distorted figures, scarred beyond recognition, yet standing out for their truths.

A Catholic by birth, if his Christ was often monstrous, with spiky teeth and bulbous eyes, his heads were devilish, landscapes apocalyptic and women voluptuous. Souza’s figures gave rise to a new iconography in modern Indian art, says Dalmia.

The contradictions in his art seem to emerge from the tussle of sin with sensuality — orthodox religious teachings vis-a-vis the erotic Indian art around. However, in an interview with Dalmia, he proclaims: “My painting is not a product of love or anger. My painting is a product of my libido.”

Spotted in school lavatories, his risque art got him expelled from school; his participation in the Quit India Movement got him, a top student, expelled from JJ School of Art. At unease with strictures around his freedom of expression, he moved to London in 1949, and the US in 1967. He returned to India in the 1970s.

In his essay, Khanna recalls how when he first reviewed Souza’s show, he felt his art expressed his inner demons and feared he would use it to tackle them. However, in his introduction, Uday Jain of DMG says those demons became Souza’s strength.

His audacity is what took a young India to shift paradigms. His discomfiting art forced artists to find their own language. And that’s why the enfant terrible of Indian art will always thrive.