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Lot Essay
"The black paintings are more impressive [...]. They are like black stained glass windows, the forms outlined in thick lines like leading. As you move before them and different facets catch the light, they vary in tone, texture (like black velvet) and colour (not only blacks and greys, but impressions of purples and indigo) [...]. Souza is a painter who is at his best when he has a statement to make."
('Souza/Geoffrey/Rao: London Commentary by Cyril Barrett', Studio International, May 1966, p. 213)
Still Life in Black has attributed influences from Picasso's still life works and compositions, such as Ma Jolie (1914) and La Carafe (1911-1912). In the latter, Picasso rendered the shapes of the carafe, bottle and glass through an assemblage of geometrical forms rendered in very subdued, almost monochromatic tones. Souza's still life with its carafe as the centre piece, also juxtaposed with other geometrical forms is rendered in black with utmost mastery of line. While retaining the deliberately restricted palette, Souza captures a sculptural sense of the forms of the bottle, glass and carafe. The artist's inclusion of the text 'Ma Jolie' may also be connected to the Cubist Master. 'Ma Jolie' ('My pretty girl') was the chorus of a popular song performed at a Parisian music hall that Picasso frequented. In his paintings Picasso would suggest this musical association by stenciling the words in bold. Ma jolie was also Picasso's nickname for his lover Marcelle Humbert. Peppered with hidden messages, including the letters 'R' and 'N', Souza creates a personal narrative of his love for someone in this painting.
In 1966 Souza had an entire solo exhibition of black paintings, entitled Souza: Black Art & Other Paintings at Grosvenor Gallery, London. He also used these colours to deliberately build up the paint's surface creating a relief-like texture to the canvases that borders on the sculptural. Souza's travels in Europe no doubt afforded viewings of Francisco Goya's Pinturas Negras (circa 1819), often cited as an influence on his black paintings of 1965, and they were a radical departure within his oeuvre.
('Souza/Geoffrey/Rao: London Commentary by Cyril Barrett', Studio International, May 1966, p. 213)
Still Life in Black has attributed influences from Picasso's still life works and compositions, such as Ma Jolie (1914) and La Carafe (1911-1912). In the latter, Picasso rendered the shapes of the carafe, bottle and glass through an assemblage of geometrical forms rendered in very subdued, almost monochromatic tones. Souza's still life with its carafe as the centre piece, also juxtaposed with other geometrical forms is rendered in black with utmost mastery of line. While retaining the deliberately restricted palette, Souza captures a sculptural sense of the forms of the bottle, glass and carafe. The artist's inclusion of the text 'Ma Jolie' may also be connected to the Cubist Master. 'Ma Jolie' ('My pretty girl') was the chorus of a popular song performed at a Parisian music hall that Picasso frequented. In his paintings Picasso would suggest this musical association by stenciling the words in bold. Ma jolie was also Picasso's nickname for his lover Marcelle Humbert. Peppered with hidden messages, including the letters 'R' and 'N', Souza creates a personal narrative of his love for someone in this painting.
In 1966 Souza had an entire solo exhibition of black paintings, entitled Souza: Black Art & Other Paintings at Grosvenor Gallery, London. He also used these colours to deliberately build up the paint's surface creating a relief-like texture to the canvases that borders on the sculptural. Souza's travels in Europe no doubt afforded viewings of Francisco Goya's Pinturas Negras (circa 1819), often cited as an influence on his black paintings of 1965, and they were a radical departure within his oeuvre.