Osian's Auction Catalogue The Osianama Series |February 2013

77 1941 & 1943 “For Souza the religious also turns into a tale of refutation, with emphasis on the terrible but seductive aspect of the devil… ‘Painting for me is not beautiful. It is as ugly as a reptile. I attack it. It coils and recoils making fascinating patterns…It is the serpent in the grass that is really fascinating. Glistening, jeweled, writhing in the green grass. Poisoned fangs and coldblooded…’ The serpent it would seem is everywhere, in his crucifixions and landscapes…His vision of the world revels in this table of love and hate, running through all he does, rekindling it to life. This contradiction in terms of the seductive and the terrible is common to almost all his work.” – Mala Marwah, quoted in Lalit Kala Contemporary, No. 22 (September 1976): 5. “I had gone through the mill in the art schools I attended in India and Europe. Life drawing, antique drawing, perspective, anatomy, the lot. Drawing is the school of hard knocks the artist has to go through before he or she can come into the bright sunlight of colour. Drawing is the armature, the anatomy, the structure. I see drawing as solid even when I easily draw in pure outline. It’s good to remember Euclid: a point has no length or breadth but has a position. A line is made up of a number of points. A number of lines make a plane. A number of planes make a solid. This geometric formula underlines the draftsmanship of the greatest of artists, including Cezanne, who noted that nature should be viewed as based on a cone, a sphere and a cylinder. Although Cezanne did not mention the cube, he and African sculpture are fundamentals to Cubism. Prothesis and antithesis produce synthesis. Drawing for me is essential in order to build up the structure of my iconography. Drawing is a system from which colours hang.” – F.N. Souza, quoted in Aziz Kurtha, Francis Newton Souza – Bridging Western and Indian Modern Art (Ahmedabad: Mapin, 2006), 98. “There was a strict adherence to the fundamental truth of the line in Souza’s works. Recently recovered material shows copious notes and diagrams in ruled exercise books made by Souza probably while at art college, on the anatomy of the human body. The vertebrae, the thorax, the pelvic region are studied by him in great detail much in the manner of the old masters. Indeed one is reminded of the elaborate studies made by Leonardo da Vinci before he began making his masterpieces.” – Yashodhara Dalmia, “The Underbelly of Existence,” in The Demonic Line: An Exhibition of Drawings, 1940-1964 by Francis Newton Souza ExC (Delhi: Delhi Art Gallery, 2001). “Apart from knowing Perrad (Victor Perrad’s classic book of Anatomy) backwards, I had done Duval, Arthur Thomson, Bridgeman and a dozen other books of anatomy, including Cunningham’s ‘Textbook of Anatomy’ for physicians. I also did some dissection on superficial muscles on cadavers.” – F.N. Souza, quoted in Souza in the ‘Forties’ (New Delhi: Dhoomimal Gallery, 1983), 5. 36 F.N. Souza 12 April 1924 – 28 March 2002 a. Crucifixion Pencil on paper, 1941 Dated in English ‘1941’ l.l. Unfinished sketche on verso 8.2 x 6.4 in (20.8 x 16.3 cm) b. Anatomy Studies Pen and ink on paper, 1943 S/d in English ‘Souza 1943’ l.r. on both sides 8.1 x 6.5 in (20.7 x 16.5 cm) Condition b. Good, minor water stain on t.l. corner Provenance The Osian’s Collection ` 200,000 – 400,000 US$ 3,640 – 7,280 GBP 2,500 – 5,000 Lot of 2 b b verso