F N Souza: Morphology of The Face

“If he was creating monsters, probably no one would be troubled; but because his images are clearly intended to be human, one is compelled to ask why his faces have eyes high up in the forehead, or else scattered in profusion all over the face; why he paints the mouths that stretch like hair combs across the face, and limbs that branch out like thistles. Souza’s imagery is not a surrealist vision- a self-conscious aesthetic shock- so much as a spontaneous re-creation of the world as he has seen it, distilled in the mind by a host of private experiences and associations.” (Edwin Mullins, Souza, London: Anthony Blond Publishers, 1962, p. 39)

F N Souza’s striking imagery was the inevitable expression of his scepticism towards society and the hypocrisy of the Church. This is noted in his popularly known ‘Head’ series which is a representation of his critique of the face of our society. Energetically experimental, the series comprises portraits with thick virulent lines and mutated forms. Unlike portraits that are recognisable and give the viewer an understanding of the subject’s character, these heads are a satirical take on the hypocrisy of human society in general. He illustrated them in the manner of his developed visual language of symbolic imagery, bold strokes in a dark palette, as well as distorted forms and figuration. “With these distortions Souza was able to create a forceful denunciation of power and corruption.” (Yashodhara Dalmia, The Making of Modern Indian Art: The Progressives, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2001, p. 31)

F N Souza, Broken Head, 1957
Image courtesy of Saffronart

The ‘Head’ series has become very popular amongst collectors and admirers alike and is a testament to Souza’s tormented genius that is at once individualistic and appallingly honest. Broken Head, 1957, part of Saffronart’s Evening Sale this year, is a telling example of Souza’s artistic inventions of masterful planar modifications and distorted forms, where deep pain is expressed through lines that jut across the face. These heads are not only a breakthrough in the genre of portraiture, rich with layered connotations but also seminal for their unique formalistic breakthrough. While they display an allusion to Picasso’s portraits on the surface, they remain much farther from them in reality.   

Souza’s heads can be compared to Francis Bacon’s portraits for the similarity in their disfiguration of the face and exploration of the grotesque. Souza and Bacon were contemporaries who displayed their artistic temperaments through similar gestural strokes, dark palettes, malignant subjectivity, and the metamorphosis of expression and anatomy. Another commonality is rightly pointed out by Aziz Kurtha: “It is well known that both Bacon and Souza held the Russian painter Chaim Soutine, who lived in Paris, in high esteem and they both followed Soutine’s exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1950. Even a casual observer could see Souza’s debt to Soutine as well as Rouault, especially in the figures drawn with heavy lines and exaggeratedly distorted human figures.” (Aziz Kurtha, Francis Newton Souza: Bridging Western and Indian Modern Art, Ahmedabad: Mapin Publishing, 2006, p. 42) Another interesting parallel can be drawn in reading the artist’ insights about their portraits where they both assert a need to express inner emotions – Bacon intended to reveal his subject’s personal damage and referred to it as ‘fact’, and Souza, on the other hand, employed the grotesque to symbolise what he called ‘affliction’.

Francisco de Goya, Los Caprichos No. 54: El vergonzoso (The Shamefaced One), 1799
Image courtesy of Wikipedia

Souza’s art also resonated with the post-war anxiety and disorientation displayed in the works of Expressionist artists such as Edvard Munch. His inclination towards European art movements strengthened upon his move to and subsequent stay in London, from about 1949 to 1967. This period also coincided with Souza’s execution of a number of heads which later became a hallmark of his artistic journey. Francisco Goya was one amongst the other Old Masters who inspired Souza and this admiration surfaced in his series of ‘Black Paintings’ whose formalistic quality is especially similar to Goya’s Pinturas Negras. Like Souza, Goya too bore an anti-clerical outlook, painting images as an exposé of the hypocrisy, bigotry, and cruelty of the Church as seen in his series called Caprichos. The “satirical ferocity of Goya may well have led Souza to revere him even more as an artist and to follow and to sharpen his own anti-clerical inclinations.” (Kurtha, p.40) It is more in Souza’s satirical reflections on society than the style in which Goya’s influences can be felt.

F N Souza, Untitled, 1974
Image courtesy of Saffronart

While Souza’s debt to artists such as Titian and Rembrandt is direct as he often quoted them through the imagery and titles, his affinity with the language of Goya and Bacon can be ascertained through the comparisons mentioned earlier. As Souza’s language matured, his heads progressively became more abstract, e.g., Untitled, 1974,  “with what looks like reels of material or brain tissue bursting out of it.” (Kurtha, p. 117) They also displayed experimentation with colour to invite pastel pinks and blues that gave his palette a vibrant edge. These portraits usher the viewer into a space of contemplation and introspection. “Their impact is immediate and disconcerting. Here is an obviously gifted artist with considerable abilities as a draughtsman who has developed a very personal manner.” (Terence Mullaly quoted in Kurtha, p. 1910)

Bid on F N Souza’s works at Saffronart’s Evening Sale on 17 September 2022.

Watch Saffronart CEO Dinesh Vazirani as he discusses F N Souza’s ‘Broken Head’ from his iconic series of ‘Heads’ from 1957.

In Conversation With Mitch Crites

Could you tell us about your journey as a collector – what set you off on this path, when did you begin, how long have you been collecting?

I’m an American. I was born on the banks of the Mississippi river in Missouri, and I did my PhD in ancient Indian history from the University of Chicago. I first came to India in 1968 and I stayed. I’ve been here for more than 50 years. When I came here, I realised that I didn’t want to teach, I wanted to work with craftsmen. So, for many years, I worked with marble carvers and inlay workers who work in the Mughal tradition.

But even while I was working with these wonderful classical craftsmen, I was fascinated by the Indian indigenous folk and tribal art, or Adivasi art. And I began collecting from the early 1970s. In those days, Delhi had the wonderful Crafts Museum that had a new group of artists coming in each month on Dr Jyotindra Jain’s invitation. Those of us who loved folk and tribal art ran there on the first day to be the first to buy, and that’s how I started collecting.

What prompted you to pick up ancient Indian history as a subject?

I’m part native American. My grandfather and I used to go to excavate ancient burial mounds in search of arrowheads, etc. He was a doctor, but he loved Egyptology. So, there were always books around the house on the ancient world. When I first went to the University of Missouri for my BA, they didn’t have anything on Egyptology, but they had just started an Indian studies programme. And I was hooked. I did my BA, my MA, and then started my PhD at Chicago in this subject. I got a Ford Foundation Fellowship to come and study here. And I’ve been here ever since. This is home.

Jivya Soma Mashe, The Wedding Train, mid-1990s

You’ve spoken of your friendship with Jangarh Singh Shyam. Could you tell us how this came about?

In the mid-eighties, there was an artist whose work was beginning to appear with art dealers in Delhi. And I loved the art. His name was Jangarh Singh Shyam. And he became a close friend of mine. Then one day, around 1987, word came that he was showing at the Surajkund Mela. So, I got there early. He was putting out his paintings on a bamboo chatai. I ran up to him and told him that I loved his work. I think he got a little scared because here was this big American talking to him in Hindi!

I repeated that I loved his work and asked him if he visited Delhi. He mentioned that he came to Delhi every 3-4 months. I told him, “The next time you come to Delhi, you come to me. I’m not a foreigner who’s going away. I live here and I will buy from you.” And he came for the next 20 years or so, and I bought something from him every single time. We became friends. And then of course, he tragically committed suicide in 2001 which was a great loss.

A few years ago, we took out all of Jangarh’s paintings that were a part of our collection – about 250 of them – and made a book titled Jangarh Singh Shyam: The Enchanted Forest. It’s a wonderful one, written by Dr Aurogeeta Das, on Jangarh’s works in The Crites Collection.

Jangarh Singh Shyam, Two White Tigers in the Forest, 1997

Tell us a little more about your association with Jangarh, particularly from the perspective of your conversations around his art.

I remember a conversation I once had with Jangarh where I said, “Jangarh, in America, we have a concept called wall power.”

Jangarh: “Sahab, what is wall power?”

Mitch: “Some artists, not all, can paint big.”

Jangarh: “Do you think I can paint big?”

Mitch: “I think so, and here are some big canvases and very big pieces of paper. You go home and you try.”

Two months later he came back, and he had painted big, wonderful deer, creatures of the forest, and trees, and he never looked back. He kept on painting bigger and bigger.

Jangarh also painted a lot of the gods and the goddesses. In fact, he once came to me and said, “You know sahab, I’m very scared. I didn’t ask them permission to show what they look like, and they’ve never been drawn before. Some of them are very strong and powerful, they come out at night and maybe they’ll come out and get me.” I said, “Jangarh, they haven’t come, have they? I think they’re happy with how you’re showing people what they look like. So, you keep on doing it.”

After Jangarh passed away, I was very sad. I kept looking for another artist of his incredible calibre. He was like a Renaissance painter, a Da Vinci who could do everything. I kept looking but I couldn’t find anyone. No Gond artist came, nobody. Then I found this artist – Jodhaiya Bai Baiga. She’s on the cover of our book (Bhumijan: Artists of the Earth), and I think she has the same talent as Jangarh. She’s 82 now and she started painting only when she was 69. She is remarkable. She just got the Nari Shakti award, the female empowerment award from the President. She’s very special. 

(L-R) Jodhaiya Bai Baiga, Bholenath (Lord Shiva), 2020; Jodhaiya Bai Baiga, The Mahua Tree, 2021

What motivates you to keep working within this space of indigenous folk and tribal art?

Part of the appeal is that you get to interact with great artists. You get to help them, you get to nourish them, you get to support them, you see their lives change in front of your eyes, you see their families’ lives change. And I like that. I like interacting with them and coming up with ideas together. I never direct them too much though. I love the act of releasing what’s inside them. Sometimes they just need a tiny bit of paper or pigments or paint or brushes. Others might need a bit more guidance, but you have to do it in a gentle unobtrusive way. You have to let them do it their way.

I like interacting with the human condition, I like interacting with people – where they come from. I like to see change – families doing better, having enough money to educate their children, get medicines, etc. My mother was the same – she loved helping people, going to the old people’s home, giving to the poor. I like to, in a gentle way, improve their situation – see them grow, see it pass on to the next generation. I also encourage them to teach. Not just their own children, but others as well so the traditions are passed on since it’s the only way it’ll continue. I’m lucky to be doing what I love, and I plan to keep on doing it, no matter how many years I’ve got.

(L-R) Rajendran, Village Scene, 1993-1994; Rajendran, Man and Monitor Lizard, 1993-1994

Why do you want to focus primarily on contemporary folk and tribal artists?

Well, I’m not as young as I used to be. And I think that the Adivasi artists need help more than anybody else. They’re struggling, more so during the pandemic which was a very difficult time for all artists. Some of them are virtually untrained, unschooled and don’t even have a visual tradition to draw from. But when you give them paper, pigments, and paint, somehow, they reach deep within themselves to find something I call ‘design DNA’. It goes back to the earliest roots of Indian culture and civilisation. This is the heartland; this is the beginning of your culture, and this is so exciting. A lot of contemporary artists get influenced by the West, or they studied under the British system – they’ve been polluted in a way. That’s not the case with these artists – these people are pure – and that’s what makes them so powerful.

There’s a group of baiga artists at our studio that we’re working with at the moment. The studio was set up by Aashish Swami, a contemporary artist from Umaria in Madhya Pradesh. He taught them about mixing paints and all that, not just how to paint. And out of it came this lady – Jodhaiya Bai Baiga.

In the show, there are these two paintings here. Dr Thiagarajan from Chennai, who was a clinical psychologist, he found a village of snake and rat catchers (Irulas) in Tamil Nadu. This was a very isolated village – no buses, no contact. He went there and gave them paints and everything and this is what they painted. Just extraordinary!

Shaikh Usman Tirandaz, Porcupine, 2015

Talk to us about the genesis of Bhumijan.

It was during my conversations with other collectors like Minal [Vazirani] that I decided to do a show – one last big show. And I decided to go into my cupboards and trunks and warehouses and find the early paintings that I bought in the ‘70s and ‘80s and combine them with the best of emerging talent. So that’s what this show is about.

Bhumijan are, of course, people of the earth – a term that anthropologist Verrier Elwin liked to use for the Adivasi people. We adopted that phrase. This show is very important. Visually, it’s a treat. You see things from tantric to tribal and contemporary – you see a range of traditional talent. And we’ll never be able to do it again because I don’t have enough early material. The early material is all gone. I never had very much, most of it has been sold or destroyed because nobody took care of it. So, I can never do a show like this again. And, in a way, I’m glad because I don’t have to focus on the old masters anymore. I can just focus on the new talent. I’m 77 and I want to live the rest of my days in your country which has been so good to me and I’m going to continue working with folk and tribal artists and help them with their careers. And I’ll keep on going. Like I tell my assistant Caroline, one day I might be in a wheelchair, but I’ll still be able to hold the paintings and look at them. I’ll keep on working till I drop.

Lipai works by Sundari Bai Rajwar and Phoolmani: (clockwise from L-R) Bhoomi (Earth), 2021; Jal (Water), 2021; Akash (Ether), 2021; Agni (Fire), 2021; Vayu (Air), 2021

If you had to pick three of your favourites from the works on display here, which ones would they be?

One is the large porcupine. The artist Shaikh Usman Tirandaz was my friend, and he was wonderfully talented. He was from Jaipur, and he died last year. The porcupine is on a huge scale, something I wanted him to work on since he had wall power. He had the ability to take the Mughal tradition and contemporise it.

The second would be the Bholenath and the Mahua tree by Jodhaiya Bai.

And finally, I love this set of five paintings [seen above]. This is the panchtattva – earth, air, water, fire, ether. This is by Sundari Bai Rajwar who was the greatest in this tradition called Lipai. It’s a finger-painting tradition but it’s a very technical and complicated procedure. She also passed away last year. And she was a great master. She used to decorate homes with patterns. But I wanted her to try something conceptual. So, we started with fire. I told Sundari Bai, “I don’t want you to draw fire, I want you to draw the spirit of fire, the essence of fire.” When she remained puzzled, I asked her to take some time and think it over. She came to me in some time and said she wanted to try. The first thing she painted was this. And it’s fire! It’s the spirit of fire, it’s the essence of it. And then we went on to the other elements. She was wonderful. She had two disciples who are still alive, who I’m working with right now because the tradition is dying. Nobody wants this anymore, they want to put tiles on the walls, they want something more modern. So, unless you contemporise it, the tradition will die out. Luckily, this set is modern. These works have a level of abstraction in them that’s very powerful and will fit in any ultra-modern home.

Bhumijan: Artists of the Earth is an ongoing exhibition at the Visual Arts Gallery, India Habitat Centre in New Delhi. The exhibition consists of paintings and drawings from The Crites Collection and continues till 7 May 2022.

Inside Amrita Sher-Gil’s Ladies’ Enclosure

The Indian art world has, over the years, seen various artists making significant and often path-breaking contributions through their craft. But there are few artists who are as fascinating and brilliant as Amrita Sher-Gil. 

Considered to be a pioneer of modernism in India, Sher-Gil’s short but highly fruitful career established her as an eminent artist with an aesthetic sensibility that blended European and Indian elements skilfully. Through her work, Sher-Gil captured the lives and experiences of women in early 20th century India. Her paintings are lauded for their timeless themes and qualities that powerfully resonate with women’s narratives even today.

Amrita in her studio in Simla, 1937 | Photo: Umrao Singh Sher-Gil
Image courtesy: Umrao Singh Sher-Gil Archive, New Delhi

Sher-Gil was born in 1913 to a Marie Antoinette Gottesmann, Hungarian-Jewish opera singer and Umrao Singh Sher-Gil Majithia, a Sikh aristocrat, scholar and photographer. After her promising young talent was discovered at a really young age, Sher-Gil received formal training in art from reputable schools and tutors. In 1929, upon the recommendation of her uncle, Sher-Gil went on to study art at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. The following years marked the beginning of her success as an artist. Nonetheless, a newfound appreciation and longing for Indian art as well as a desire to be closer to her Indian ancestry prompted Sher-Gil to relocate to India.

Sher-Gil’s return to India in 1934 saw a change in her artistic practice. Along with a transformed colour palette that reflected earthy Indian tones, the subjects of her paintings also became increasingly representative of her surroundings.

Amrita painting In the Ladies’ Enclosure, Saraya, Gorakhpur, 1938 | Image courtesy: Vivan Sundaram

The oil on canvas masterpiece In the Ladies’ Enclosure was painted in 1938, a few years after her return to India. This seminal work of art marks the zenith of Sher-Gil’s evolution as an artist and is the outcome of her years spent in training and developing her talent. 

Painted at her family’s estate in Saraya, Gorakhpur, the work depicts a group of women gathered in a field. Notable artist, and Sher-Gil’s nephew, Vivan Sundaram explains that the female subjects present in this painting are, in fact, people known to Sher-Gil – including members of the Majithia family who had been living in the estate at Saraya over long periods of time.

Bride’s Toilet, 1937

The painting offers an arrangement of subjects that is similar to her earlier work Bride’s Toilet, 1937. In both paintings, the main subject is a young woman positioned in the centre with an older woman dressing her hair. However, both paintings, even though executed just a year apart, showcase varied painting styles and techniques.

A striking characteristic of In the Ladies’ Enclosure is the composition’s flat relief, indicating a further departure from realism. As noted by Sundaram, “The bride’s profiled features are drawn schematically: on a pale pink skin colour, four notational lines for the eye and a tiny dot for the pupil. This is to de-romanticize the face – modern art’s agenda to get rid of the shackles of realist painting. Amrita’s flat application of paint and minimal drawing gives this person a remote presence, a quiet austerity.” (Vivan Sundaram, Amrita Sher-Gil: In the Ladies’ Enclosure: A Close Reading and a Walk Through the Enclosure, Mumbai: Saffronart, 2021)

In the Ladies’ Enclosure, 1938, Oil on canvas, 21.5 x 31.5 in | Estimate: Rs 30 – 40 crores ($4.2 – 5.6 million)

In the painting, Sher-Gil uses a palette that is charged with vibrant and essentially Indian hues. The central figure dressed in a vermillion salwar-kameez and the reddish-brown sari-clad figure standing next to her are both connected by their vastly different shades of red. The small girl in a magenta kurta and the hibiscus flowers further diversify the reddish tones in the foreground. Accompanying the reds are the starkly different, yet complementing, blue and green tones of the land, hedge and sky. Art historian Yashodhara Dalmia explains that Sher-Gil’s choice of colours is perhaps an attempt to “bring out the contrast between the hot reds and the greens, one finds in the early Rajput miniatures” (Yashodhara Dalmia, Amrita Sher-Gil: A Life, New Delhi: Penguin, 2006, pp. 106-107)

While working on this composition, Sher-Gil was also attempting plein air painting, incorporating the rich stylistic features of Rajput and Pahari miniatures. “In these she freely ignored the actual landscapes but used them in part in her compositions and colour organizations. Nor were the landscapes a motif for the foreground but were an integral part of the composition.” (Dalmia, p. 107)

Sher-Gil painted In the Ladies’ Enclosure in the final years of her brief but prodigious life. After her death in 1941, a portfolio of twelve of her most important works, chosen by Sher-Gil prior to her passing away, was posthumously published. In the Ladies’ Enclosure was one of the twelve.


Watch Saffronart CEO Dinesh Vazirani as he takes us through the legendary Amrita Sher-Gil’s life and artistic journey, culminating in In the Ladies’ Enclosure.

Read the essay by Vivan Sundaram to find out more about the artist’s unique application of colour and who the subjects in the painting are.

Bid on Sher-Gil’s works at Saffronart’s Summer Live Auction on 13 July 2021.

The Art of Jangarh Singh Shyam

Gond art is among the most popular and well-known indigenous art traditions of India. Taking its name after the tribe which practices it, Gond art is mainly centred in Madhya Pradesh. Within this form, there is a wide spectrum of artistic styles, primarily connected to certain painters and their practices. The tribe’s strong tradition of oral narrative—often focussing on their gods who corresponded to elements of nature—transposes to their paintings as well.

These indigenous art forms have now evolved in their social and cultural roles. Efforts by art historians and the government have helped push them to prominence and artists themselves have painstakingly modified a centuries-old ethos to contemporary demand. At the forefront of giving the folk and tribal arts the recognition they deserved, was Jangarh Singh Shyam, famed for his Gond paintings and for popularising the art form abroad.

Jangarh Singh Shyam at his studio in Bharat Bhavan | Wikimedia Commons

Shyam is synonymous with this art form, so much so, that Udayan Vajpeyi, in his essay, “From Music to Painting” proposes that the art be called Jangarh kalam, or Jangarh style. (Sathyapal ed., Native Art of India, Thrissur: Kerala Lalithakala Akademi, 2011, p. 33) Hailing from the Gond tribe in Madhya Pradesh, Jangarh Singh Shyam lived in the jungles of Mandla until a chance encounter with the modern artist Jagdish Swaminathan in the 1980s. Swaminathan, who was leading an Indian collective on a study tour with the aim of creating a collection of tribal art in Bhopal, came across Shyam’s house, whose walls were adorned with his art. Upon enquiring, they met Shyam—only a teenager at the time, but with a striking style of painting.

Jagdish Swaminathan with Jangarh Singh Shyam and his wife at Bharat Bhavan, Bhopal, 1987 | © Jyoti Bhatt

Swaminathan took Shyam on as his protege, bringing him to the Roopankar Museum in Bhopal, where he learned to transfer his art from walls to paper. He created a series of works on paper and canvas which are displayed at Bharat Bhavan today. “His first large works on paper from the start of the 1980s contain highly expressive forms of great simplicity redolent of primitivism.” (Herve Perdriolle, Indian Art: Contemporary, One Word, Several Worlds, Milan: 5 Continents Editions, p. 61)

Shiv – Many-headed or Shesh Nag snake, trident and lingayoni (Gond Art), 1989, Gouache on paper, 19.5 x 25.5 in, Estimate: Rs 6 – 8 lakhs ($8,220 – 10,960)

In typical Gond tradition, Shyam’s art is based on the deities and divinities of the Gond tribe, and the animist culture of worship surrounding them. Suspended in space, he renders them like silhouettes creating the effect of shadow puppets, with bright colours, dots and hatched lines. The inspiration for using fine dots comes from the tribe itself, where shamans go into a trance and imagine that the particles of their bodies disperse into space to join with those of spirits to form other beings. The intricacy and control in his dot-based designs is seen in the works of all Gond artists, as are his most common subjects – the tree of life and various animals.

Sher (Gond Art), 1990, Ink on paper, 14 x 11 in and Gughawa Pakshee (Gond Art), 1993, Ink on paper, 21.5 x 14.5 in, Estimates: Rs 3 – 4 lakhs ($4,110 – 5,480) and Rs 5 – 6 lakhs ($6,850 – 8,220)

In 2010, the Muse du quai Branly in Paris held an exhibition called Other Masters of India, which carried large works on paper by Shyam from the late 1980s and early 1990s, which according to Perdriolle, “reveal a development in the direction of a profusion of psychedelic colors and more elaborated forms. The second half of the 1990s was marked by an unusual refinement, pictorial maturity, and graphic mastery that resulted in some of his best works.” (Perdriolle, p. 61)

Birds (Gond Art), 1996, Ink on paper, 11 x 13.75 in, Estimate: Rs 4 – 5 lakhs ($5,480 – 6,850)

Shyam worked with several mediums throughout his career, including drawing and silkscreen painting, rediscovering a new style and representation every time. As he achieved fame, Shyam encouraged other artists in his community to paint, giving them access into the mainstream. His house was the studio, where he provided his students with paper, canvas and paint, encouraging them to find their own expression through new mediums.

Shyam passed away in Japan in 2001. He was in his early forties. The artist’s memory is preserved in his body of work, including the large murals he created for the Parliament building in Bhopal, and continued by the members of his family trained by him, including his wife Nankusia, daughter Japani, and son Mayank. In a short-lived but exceptional career, he left behind a powerful and dynamic legacy which reached for the new while preserving the roots of the Gond artistic tradition.


Saffronart’s Winter Online Auction features four works by the artist, and will be on auction on 9 – 10 December 2020 on saffronart.com.

IN MEMORIAM: ANJUM SINGH (1967 – 2020)

Saffronart is saddened by the loss of artist Anjum Singh, who passed away on 17 November 2020. A passionate and dedicated artist, Singh will be remembered for the indelible mark that she left on the Indian art community.

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