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Lot Essay
Souza is an image-maker and not an aesthete or a theorist. These are earth paintings, and their impact lies in the artist’s power to distort and strengthen the eye’s image of this world, and to produce an effect almost shocking in its intensity.
- Edwin Mullins, 1962
In the 1950s and 60s, London experienced an unprecedented influx of artists immigrating from the Commonwealth and newly independent decolonized nations. The number of British Empire citizens living outside the United Kingdom plummeted from seven hundred million to just five million in the two decades following World War II, making London a key destination for many artists. Francis Newton Souza was one such artist, arriving by ship in 1949. The culture shock of London at that time was acute for Souza, who jokingly addressed the alien customs of England in a serialized essay in 1950, writing, “Andre Maurois warned young Frenchmen starting for England: 'You are going to dwell in a far country, remote not in miles (it is a shorter distance than from Paris to Lyons) but in ideas and customs'” (Artist statement, ‘Stanzas From Zen,’ Thought, 17 Nov 1950).
Geographically and culturally distant, England was nevertheless a place Souza approached with intense curiosity, fully immersing himself in his new environment. By 1962, he had cemented his position within the London art scene, having held solo exhibitions at Gallery One and gained recognition as a key member of what is now known as the ‘London School’ of painters. Deeply embedded in the bohemian creative circles of Soho, he experienced firsthand the energy of a rapidly changing artistic landscape.
The present lot was painted in 1962, often considered the pinnacle of Souza’s London years. That same year, Anthony Blond published the first monograph on the artist written by Edwin Mullins, a text that remains a quintessential study of Souza’s work from this critical period. By then, Souza had travelled extensively across Europe, including a scholarship-funded stay in Rome in 1960. His travels also took him to Paris, Majorca, Madrid, Stockholm, and significantly, Amsterdam in the early 1960s. This exposure to European art, from Renaissance to Modernism, profoundly impacted his evolving style.
Untitled (After Head of a Man with a Pipe), painted in 1962, is a clear example of this influence. The work references a specific series of studies by Van Gogh from the mid-1880s, particularly Head of a Man with a Pipe and the drawing Head of a Young Man with a Pipe (1884–85). Souza had already drawn inspiration from Van Gogh’s The Potato Eaters (1885) in his seminal 1946 painting Family, demonstrating his long-standing engagement with the Dutch master’s work.
During this period, Souza frequently referenced paintings he had encountered on his travels, reinterpreting them through his own distinct style. Other examples include Young Ladies of Belsize Park (1962), inspired by Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907); Seated Man in Red (After Titian) (1963), which recalls Titian’s Portrait of Charles V (1548); and Untitled (after Titian's Venus of Urbino and Manet's Olympia) (1961). These works, painted between 1961 and 1963, reflect Souza’s dialogue with European art history.
Untitled (After Head of a Man with a Pipe) also exemplifies the major stylistic evolution that characterized Souza’s portraits from this time, particularly his use of multiple oval ocular forms. In 1961, he explained this development, noting, “I started using more than two eyes, numerous eyes and fingers on my paintings and drawings of human figures when I realised what it meant to have the superfluous and so not need the necessary. Why should I be sparse and parsimonious when not only this world, but worlds in space are open to me? I have everything to use at my disposal” (Artist statement, F N SOUZA, exhibition catalogue, London, 1961).
The present painting demonstrates how Souza adopted a subject from Van Gogh’s work but transformed it into something uniquely his own. Here, his trademark crosshatched lines create a face that seems to fragment into multiple eyes, nostrils, and even eyebrows that resemble ocular forms. This mutation of the human figure reflects Souza’s preoccupation with Cold War anxieties and the looming threat of nuclear catastrophe. This painting was created shortly after and follows in the tradition of his portraits like Manufacturer of Nuclear Weapons, where a wealthy man is portrayed as demonic figure symbolizing greed and war profiteering. Similarly, the figure in Untitled (After Head of a Man with a Pipe) embodies the fear and existential uncertainty of the Cold War era, a time when many believed nuclear disaster was inevitable as tensions mounted between superpowers on either side of the Iron Curtain.
- Edwin Mullins, 1962
In the 1950s and 60s, London experienced an unprecedented influx of artists immigrating from the Commonwealth and newly independent decolonized nations. The number of British Empire citizens living outside the United Kingdom plummeted from seven hundred million to just five million in the two decades following World War II, making London a key destination for many artists. Francis Newton Souza was one such artist, arriving by ship in 1949. The culture shock of London at that time was acute for Souza, who jokingly addressed the alien customs of England in a serialized essay in 1950, writing, “Andre Maurois warned young Frenchmen starting for England: 'You are going to dwell in a far country, remote not in miles (it is a shorter distance than from Paris to Lyons) but in ideas and customs'” (Artist statement, ‘Stanzas From Zen,’ Thought, 17 Nov 1950).
Geographically and culturally distant, England was nevertheless a place Souza approached with intense curiosity, fully immersing himself in his new environment. By 1962, he had cemented his position within the London art scene, having held solo exhibitions at Gallery One and gained recognition as a key member of what is now known as the ‘London School’ of painters. Deeply embedded in the bohemian creative circles of Soho, he experienced firsthand the energy of a rapidly changing artistic landscape.
The present lot was painted in 1962, often considered the pinnacle of Souza’s London years. That same year, Anthony Blond published the first monograph on the artist written by Edwin Mullins, a text that remains a quintessential study of Souza’s work from this critical period. By then, Souza had travelled extensively across Europe, including a scholarship-funded stay in Rome in 1960. His travels also took him to Paris, Majorca, Madrid, Stockholm, and significantly, Amsterdam in the early 1960s. This exposure to European art, from Renaissance to Modernism, profoundly impacted his evolving style.
Untitled (After Head of a Man with a Pipe), painted in 1962, is a clear example of this influence. The work references a specific series of studies by Van Gogh from the mid-1880s, particularly Head of a Man with a Pipe and the drawing Head of a Young Man with a Pipe (1884–85). Souza had already drawn inspiration from Van Gogh’s The Potato Eaters (1885) in his seminal 1946 painting Family, demonstrating his long-standing engagement with the Dutch master’s work.
During this period, Souza frequently referenced paintings he had encountered on his travels, reinterpreting them through his own distinct style. Other examples include Young Ladies of Belsize Park (1962), inspired by Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907); Seated Man in Red (After Titian) (1963), which recalls Titian’s Portrait of Charles V (1548); and Untitled (after Titian's Venus of Urbino and Manet's Olympia) (1961). These works, painted between 1961 and 1963, reflect Souza’s dialogue with European art history.
Untitled (After Head of a Man with a Pipe) also exemplifies the major stylistic evolution that characterized Souza’s portraits from this time, particularly his use of multiple oval ocular forms. In 1961, he explained this development, noting, “I started using more than two eyes, numerous eyes and fingers on my paintings and drawings of human figures when I realised what it meant to have the superfluous and so not need the necessary. Why should I be sparse and parsimonious when not only this world, but worlds in space are open to me? I have everything to use at my disposal” (Artist statement, F N SOUZA, exhibition catalogue, London, 1961).
The present painting demonstrates how Souza adopted a subject from Van Gogh’s work but transformed it into something uniquely his own. Here, his trademark crosshatched lines create a face that seems to fragment into multiple eyes, nostrils, and even eyebrows that resemble ocular forms. This mutation of the human figure reflects Souza’s preoccupation with Cold War anxieties and the looming threat of nuclear catastrophe. This painting was created shortly after and follows in the tradition of his portraits like Manufacturer of Nuclear Weapons, where a wealthy man is portrayed as demonic figure symbolizing greed and war profiteering. Similarly, the figure in Untitled (After Head of a Man with a Pipe) embodies the fear and existential uncertainty of the Cold War era, a time when many believed nuclear disaster was inevitable as tensions mounted between superpowers on either side of the Iron Curtain.