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Lot Essay
The black paintings are more impressive [...] They are like 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)
(C. Barnett, 'Souza / Geoffry / Rao: London Commentary', Studio International, May 1966, p. 213)
Francis Newton Souza's series of black paintings represent a radical but brief departure within his oeuvre. This series, which the artist worked on only in 1964-65, culminated in an exhibition at Grosvenor Gallery, London, in 1966, titled Black Art and Other Paintings, shocking what he felt was a largely conservative art establishment there. Differing critical views on Souza's source of inspiration for these works have suggested that the artist was influenced by Francisco de Goya's Pinturas Negras and the monochromatic works of conceptual artist Yves Klein, that he most likely encountered when both artists were exhibiting at Galerie Iris Clert, Paris, through the 1950s and 60s.
Souza used black to explore his favorite themes, including nudes, portraits, religious scenes and landscapes. In this large cityscape, the artist deliberately builds up the surface with thick, dark paint, creating a relief-like texture that borders on the sculptural. The genre of landscape was of particular interest to Souza, and his investigations in black allowed him to further explore the relationship between the ominous and sublime aspects of nature, as well as the dynamic ties that he believed connected nature, man and God. Souza represents these centrifugal and centripetal forces by rendering nature as a looming, primordial presence, threatening to smother the smooth black cornices, windows and doors of the built structures that betray human presence.
Here, "the substance is black, not the smooth black of pure sensation, but a very palpable black, its solidity created by thick brush strokes in different directions, and by a considerable range of tones according to the paint's direction in relation to the light." (D. Duerden, ‘F.N. Souza’, The Arts Review, London, 14 May 1966, p. 215) Beneath the artist's thick black brushstrokes, however, faint under layers of red and blue reveal themselves in places, shimmering through the dark like stars in the night sky and reminding the viewer of the unsurpassed beauty of the natural world as well.
(C. Barnett, 'Souza / Geoffry / Rao: London Commentary', Studio International, May 1966, p. 213)
Francis Newton Souza's series of black paintings represent a radical but brief departure within his oeuvre. This series, which the artist worked on only in 1964-65, culminated in an exhibition at Grosvenor Gallery, London, in 1966, titled Black Art and Other Paintings, shocking what he felt was a largely conservative art establishment there. Differing critical views on Souza's source of inspiration for these works have suggested that the artist was influenced by Francisco de Goya's Pinturas Negras and the monochromatic works of conceptual artist Yves Klein, that he most likely encountered when both artists were exhibiting at Galerie Iris Clert, Paris, through the 1950s and 60s.
Souza used black to explore his favorite themes, including nudes, portraits, religious scenes and landscapes. In this large cityscape, the artist deliberately builds up the surface with thick, dark paint, creating a relief-like texture that borders on the sculptural. The genre of landscape was of particular interest to Souza, and his investigations in black allowed him to further explore the relationship between the ominous and sublime aspects of nature, as well as the dynamic ties that he believed connected nature, man and God. Souza represents these centrifugal and centripetal forces by rendering nature as a looming, primordial presence, threatening to smother the smooth black cornices, windows and doors of the built structures that betray human presence.
Here, "the substance is black, not the smooth black of pure sensation, but a very palpable black, its solidity created by thick brush strokes in different directions, and by a considerable range of tones according to the paint's direction in relation to the light." (D. Duerden, ‘F.N. Souza’, The Arts Review, London, 14 May 1966, p. 215) Beneath the artist's thick black brushstrokes, however, faint under layers of red and blue reveal themselves in places, shimmering through the dark like stars in the night sky and reminding the viewer of the unsurpassed beauty of the natural world as well.