FRANCIS NEWTON SOUZA (1924-2002)

View From the Studio depicts Francis Newton Souza‘s immediate North London surrounding, where he lived and worked during the 1950s and 60s around Belsize Park and Hampstead Heath. This work updates the modernist practise of painting en plein air. Souza’s landscapes of the early 1960s become progressively more abstract and gestural giving more of an abstract impression than literal description of place. The corniced buildings, twisting line and piercing steeple like chimney also suggest the Catholic architecture which informed so much of Souza's oeuvre. The rich palette of blues, reminiscent of stained glass windows found in churches, further alludes to the Catholic imagery that would perennially permeate his practice.

Jagdish Swaminathan describes Souza's cityscapes as "singularly devoid of emotive inhibitions." They are the "congealed visions of a mysterious world. Whether standing solidly in enamelled petrification or delineated in thin colour with calligraphic intonations, the cityscapes of Souza are purely plastic entities with no reference to memories or mirrors." (J. Swaminathan, 'Souza's Exhibition', Lalit Kala Contemporary 40, New Delhi, March 1995, p. 31)

View From the Studio, epitomises Souza’s landscapes of this period, gestural, expressive, controlled, abstract and symbolic. This expansive canvas oscillates between the lyrical, the sublime and the malevolent as Souza demonstrates the inherent tension between nature and civilisation. His works, which often depict the sky as a viscous force against the buildings and trees, become treatises on the conflating powers of God, man and the natural world. Rooftops cut sharply into the translucent, glowing winter sky, suggesting not harmony but a tumultuous battle between dissonant elements, emphasised through the violent brushstroke and dramatic palette. Juxtaposing naturalism with reverential expression, Souza represents the landscape as a scene of primordial power.