A family of four—a man, woman, girl, and boy—are seated together, their skin brown, eyes large, gaze piercing. But like any great work of art, it’s on closer observation that more is revealed. You realise that behind them, what initially looked to you like a framed still life painting is actually a window into a wealthier, fancier home where fish, fruit and wine adorn the table. It is this little detail that causes the painting to fall into place: you understand that the four members of the family are seated on the steps outside a house that isn’t theirs. Their lack of privilege is starkly contrasted by the seemingly ubiquitous window right behind them. Created in 1947 by Francis Newton Souza, the painting is aptly titled ‘The Family’, and will be on display at the Centre for Contemporary Art, Bikaner House in Delhi, in honour of the Indian Modernist’s hundredth birth anniversary.
“The painting is from 1947 which, of course, is the year of India’s independence,” notes Minal Vazirani, the president and co-founder of Saffronart, the auction house that has organised the centenary exhibition in partnership with Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, Grosvenor Gallery, and Harper Collins. “I think much of the flavour of what Souza was creating at the time was imbued with dissent and his political leanings at the time. He used art almost as a tool for activism. You could say he was one of the first Modern activist artists.”
Born in Goa in 1924, Souza moved to what was then Bombay in his teens with his widowed mother, who worked as a dressmaker to support the family. He grew up in poverty, once recalling the conditions of his Goa home, he stated: “There was no table. I had to squat on a mat to write and paint and eat my food. The floor was overlaid with a thick paste of cow-dung spread manually in a pattern of semi-concentric circles. There were little toads in every hole in the walls, and the corners seemed tied together by strings of cobwebs.” A reference to this description is seen in ‘The Family’ as a huge white toad rests by the family’s feet, next to empty utensils and what looks like plain white rice.
In 1940, Souza enrolled at Sir J.J. School of Art. Although he excelled as a student, he was expelled for participating in the Quit India Movement and protesting against the then-British dean of the college, Charles Gerrard. “This was an important inflection point for him,” Vazirani explains, “It was a transformative period in his life that happened to coincide with very significant changes in India’s political and social landscape.” Souza’s own political leanings were never ambiguous. In 1947, the artist became a member of the Communist Party of India. “His work depicted the struggles of the poor and those living on the margins of society,” expands Vazirani, “He also criticised their oppressors, whether they were capitalists, the bourgeoisie, or the departing colonial class. There was definitely critique in his work because of his political leanings.” This influence of the Communist Party was apparent in the titles of his pieces such as ‘The Criminal and the Judge are Made of the Same Stuff’. In fact, ‘The Family’ is believed to have originally been titled ‘After Working in the Field All Day, We Have No Rice to Eat’.
1947 was also the year in which Souza founded the Bombay Progressive Artists’ Group. “There are many stories about how the group was founded and Souza is the one who takes credit for it,” Vazirani explains, “He always told me, ‘I brought them together.’ He talked about this instant when he was walking under a ladder and M.F. Husain was painting something up on that ladder and dropped paint on him. And that’s how they met and he asked him to join the Progressive Artists’ Group. It included S.H. Raza, who he knew from J.J. School of Art.”
Although short-lived, the group had a great impact on India’s art landscape as they shifted away from the academic realism being taught in Indian art schools to explore a modern Indian identity. As the new born nation came into its own, so did its artists. In 1949, Souza quit the Communist Party after their constant restrictions on his artistic freedom. Declaring that he could not paint for others, only for himself, he left for London, where he would go on to gain great success. “Before he left for London, though, he had a solo show at the Bombay Art Society which was a big deal in those days,” Vazirani shares, “Some criticised him, saying he shouldn’t be using art as a medium for social critique. But no one could deny the raw power of these images and the fact that they were a turning point in Modern Indian art.”
