Francis N Souza - The Crucifixion

Luke 23: 44–45   John 19: 25–27

In this expressionistic painting Jesus, in pain, hangs on the cross topped by the INRI sign. John, in grey, is on his right and another figure, probably a woman, perhaps Jesus’s mother Mary, in brown, is on his left. She has four superimposed eyes, two looking at Jesus and two looking out at the viewer. There are faint echoes of the cross (and buildings) in the background. While the figures are well lit, the scene is set in darkness. The sun (or moon) appears in the sky on Jesus’ left. Perhaps this is the solar eclipse suggested in the Bible. It was traditional to portray the sun and moon in crucifixions, to represent the New and Old Testaments.

Commentary based on A Guide to the Methodist Art Collection.

Born: Saligao, Goa, India, 1924

Died: Mumbai, India, 2002

Early life and education

Francis Newton Souza (always known as FN Souza) was born in Portuguese Goa, India. He grew up a Roman Catholic and attended a Jesuit school. He went on to the Sir JJ School of Art in Mumbai but was expelled in 1945 for political activity.

Life and career

In 1947, Souza formed the Progressive Artists Group and won the major award in the Bombay Art Society exhibition. The following year, he was included in the exhibition of Indian Art at the Royal Academy, London. His work caused some controversy in India and in 1949 Souza moved to London in search of a more liberal audience. He remained for nearly twenty years though he spent his last few years in Mumbai.

As a “foreign modernist painter from a decolonised country” (Pryesh Mistry, 2018) Souza struggled at first to find opportunities in London. However, he did find recognition, assisted by support from the poet and editor Stephen Spender. His work was exhibited by Victor Musgrave at Gallery One in London in 1961. He exhibited in New York along with Ben Nicholson, John Bratby, Terry Frost and Ceri Richards (also represented in the Methodist Modern Art Collection) in the Guggenheim International Award exhibition and in 1960, won a scholarship from the Italian government.

The critics Edwin Mullins and David Sylvester compared the expressionistic vernacular of Souza’s work with that of Graham Sutherland and Francis Bacon, both of whom depicted religious subjects in a similarly brutal style shortly after World War II. It is also possible to make comparisons with Picasso and Georges Rouault (also represented in the Methodist Modern Art Collection).

Souza was joined in London by his half-brother and fellow artist Lancelot Ribeiro. There are similarities in their work, especially in their angular and expressionistically-coloured townscapes and portraits.

Souza often combined eroticism with religion, which were not in conflict in Hindu philosophy. He ceased to be an orthodox Christian but painted religious subjects to the end of his life with a fiercely idiosyncratic and spiky style. Souza took a radical approach to religious painting, seeking to refute the “blond operatic Christs and flaxen-haired shy Virgins” he saw at his Jesuit school (quoted in Aziz Kurtha’s book). Instead, in a group of Crucifixions painted around 1960 he created “an agonised black Christ” seen particularly in the large, disturbing The Crucifixion of 1959 (now in the Tate but not acquired until 1993). The Crucifixion (1962) in the Methodist Modern Art Collection was purchased in the year it was painted. His 1963 Crucifixion (Private Collection) was shown at The Human and the Divine Predicament exhibition held at the Grosvenor Gallery, London in 1964.

Aziz Kurtha reports that Souza developed an addiction to alcohol: art critics have disagreed about the positive or negative impact of his addiction on his painting. Edwin Mullins noted in his1962 monograph that Souza did eventually seek help and treatment.

George Butcher (quoted in Priyesh Mistry’s article) said Souza’s works combine the sacred and profane, the old and the new, East and West.

Souza moved to New York in 1967, winning the Guggenheim International Award and exhibited continuously in the United States, London and New Delhi.

Souza’s solo exhibitions include the Bombay Art Society Salon (1945), Mumbai, India; the ICA, London (1951); Galerie Lambert, Paris (1960); Grosvenor Gallery, London (1964 and 1966), Dhoomi Mal Gallery, New Delhi, India (1965-6, 1976, 1983); and a retrospective in the Shridnarani Gallery, New Delhi and Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai, India (1987).

His group exhibitions include the Bombay Art Society annual exhibition, Mumbai, India (1947); Indian Art, Royal Academy, London (1948); The religious theme, (Contemporary Art Society), Tate Gallery, London (1958); Six modern masters, Kumar Gallery, New Delhi, India (2001), and South Asian Modernists 1953-63, Whitworth Gallery, Manchester (2018).

Collections which hold his work include the Contemporary Art Society, London; Tate, London; Wakefield City Art Gallery; National Gallery of Modern Art, Mumbai; and the Wise Gallery of Modern Art, Cleveland, USA.

David Buckman, Artists in Britain Since 1945: Volume 2 M-Z. Vol. 2 of 2 volumes. (Bristol, Art Dictionaries Ltd, 2006), p. 1488. The text is also available on the Art UK website: https://artuk.org/discover/artists/souza-francis-newton-19242002 (viewed on September 2024

David Buckman, Lancelot Ribeiro: An artist in India and Europe, (London, Francis Boutle Publishers, 2014)

Deepanjana Klein, and Damian Vesey, ‘Souza, Francis Victor Newton [known as F.N. Souza).’ Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2019). https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/76997 (viewed on September 2024)

Aziz Kurtha, Francis Newton Souza (1924-2002): Bridging Western and Indian Modern Art, (Usmanpura, Ahmedabad, Mapin Publishing, 2006)

Pryesh Mistry, ‘Francis Newton Souza.’ In All Too Human: Bacon, Freud and a Century of Painting Life, edited by Elena Crippa, 92–103, (London, Tate Publishing, 2018)

Partha Mitter, Parul Dave Mukherji and Rakhee Balaram, 20th Century Indian Art Modern, Post-Independence, Contemporary Limited Special Collection, (London, Thames and Hudson Ltd, 2022)

Seeing the Spiritual: A Guide to the Methodist Modern Art Collection, (Oxford, Methodist Modern Art Collection, 2018), p. 100-101

Roger Wollen, Catalogue of the Methodist Church Collection of Modern Christian Art with an Account of the Collection’s History, (Oxford, The Trustees of the Methodist Collection of Modern Christian Art, 2003), p. 131-135