The Indian Express (Delhi Edition)
Artist of a Brave New World
THE INITIAL years in Europe were rife with worries. In a country still recovering from the ravages of World War II, Souza’s wife Maria was initially the breadwinner. He was getting acquainted to Western art through museums and galleries where he encountered works of Rembrandt, Caravaggio and Pablo Picasso. Though occasional earnings came through writings and commissions, including murals for the Indian Students’ Bureau on West Cromwell Road in 1950 through Indian High Commissioner VK Krishna Menon, it was only with his first solo in 1955 that he began to gain recognition. The four years of regular monthly stipend from American collector Harold Kovn er ,1956 on ward, assured sustenance. the following decade saw him produce some of his most revered works, including the monochromatic “Black on Black” paintings, and the 1959 collection of writings and drawings, Words & Lines, that won him respect in literary circles. The 1955 canvas Birth — with a pregnant nude, the self in a priest’s tunic and the cityscape — set a world record in 2008 for the most expensive Indian painting ever sold, priced at US$2.5 million. In 2015, Birth was resold for US$4.8 million.
Even as Souza and his art travelled the world — including representing Britain at the 1958 Guggenheim International Award, and Italy in 1960 on a scholarship — his domestic life was in turmoil. He became an alcoholic to a point that it began to interfere with his ability to work but finally decided to get help in 1960. He also had a turbulent affair with Jewish actress Liselotte Kristian, with whom he had three daughters. When that relationship ended, he married 17-year-old Britishamerican Barbara Zinkant. The couple travelled to India and following their return, shifted base to New York in 1967. An emulation of his state of mind, his visits to the California countryside led to cheerful landscapes in exuberant hues. His experiments during the period included ‘chemical paintings’ that involved painting or drawing on pages torn from magazines, catalogues and printed photographs using chemicals to dissolve the printer’s ink. “He was also an excellent writer and a voracious reader of art history, poetry and philosophy, which reflected in his work,” says RN Singh, founder, Progressive Art Gallery. He feels that the artist was rather misunderstood as brash and egocentric, “He might have been unpredictable but he was also very generous... His works were often personal and influenced by his life experiences. For instance, his sensual female nudes might be seen as overly explicit but they did represent both his love for the female form as also his own fractured relationships and multiple affairs. It was also somewhat his rebellion against the conventional standards of beauty, to heal his complex of having pox scars on his face that he felt repulsed women.”
Khanna recalls how the incorrigible Souza was also very demanding in his relationships. He remembers a visit to London when he was keen to purchase a Souza nude but didn’t have theaskingpriceofrs1600.“iaskedifhewould make an adjustment for me on price, but he just smiled and said that at Rs 1600 it would become my privilege to own it,” shares Khanna. As friends, they were often critical of each other. “I had once anonymously written anarticleopposingsomethinghehadwritten. I had commented that he was a little too fond of himself, which can be a dangerous thing for anywriter,painterormusician...hereaditand chuckled.hethought(lawyerandartconnoisseur) Karl Khandalavala had written it, but when I told him it was me, he laughed and laughed. He didn’t think that if I wasn’t an art critic per se, I couldn’t have critical ideas.”
Despite his global fame, few exhibitions of his works were held in India until the turn of the century. “A large part of the Indian market only took notice of Souza after the auction market became strong. Also, as opposed to international buyers, who revered his nudes and figurative works, the Indian market was or is more keen on landscapes. His diabolical heads remain the most universally loved works,” shares Jain. He adds, “My father, Ravi Jain, had Souza’s first exhibition in Dhoomimal in 1965, and sold only one work. When Souza asked him why — since he was already considered an important artist in Europe, alongside the likes of Francis Bacon and Pablo Picasso — my father said India will take time to recognise your genius. When we had another exhibition of his works from the ’40s in 1975, it was attended by then PM Indira Gandhi and also important collectors, including Masanori Fukuoka and Ebrahim Alkazi. When we showed his work at the Kala Mela in 1986, he even painted live and was a huge hit with students who gathered to take his autographs.”
Painting with absolute freedom, Souza’s art remained perplexing yet arresting, much like his own rebellion. An inveterate outsider, he had few friends with him when he passed away in Mumbai in 2002. Posthumously lauded for his modernism by britain and india, Khanna notes how Souza truly believed that he was meant to be an artist. “He never said, ‘I am a great painter’, but he was one and behaved like it. He created a certain norm for painting and stood by what he did,” adds Khanna.