Francis Newton Souza, passing away of a maverick painter

Obituary

The Goan Art Forum has condoled the untimely demise of Francis Newton Souza, a Goan artist who passed away in Mumbai, recently.

An iconoclast whom M F Hussain called his Guru, and Raza said “He taught me everything”, the passing away of Francis Newton Souza, the father of the modern Indian art movement, is seen as the end of an era in the art world.

Souza was the first Indian artist to become something of a sensation in the West. For that matter, even among his Western contemporaries, he stood pretty high on the ladder of success, like Graham Sutherland in England and Bernard Buffet in France.

One of the factors that contributed to his tremendous success was his articulateness. He managed, in his writing, to convert his racial malediction into angry genius, which he had contrived, accumulated and dispensed into visual and verbal benefactions.

His paintings have been bought up by museums from Haifa, Israel to Melbourne, Australia and the first work of an Indian artist to be bought by the Tate, Gallery in London belongs to him.

MR & NHT