FRANCIS NEWTON SOUZA (1924-2002)

Painted a few years after Francis Newton Souza moved from London to New York in 1967, the urban landscape depicted in the present lot is characterised by bright colours and heavy impasto. Also following the birth of his son, Souza's landscapes from this period illustrate the artist's joy and soaring sprits. As if in a ecstatic trance, Souza anoints the surface of this work with rich gems of pigment squeezed straight from the tube. The foliage and architectural structures are vivid and almost three-dimensional, and Souza has so much confidence in his gesture that he completely jettisons the use of the thick, black outlines that were so ubiquitous in his earlier work. Here, they are no longer needed to maintain order within the composition, which seems to be spilling uncontrollably out of the frame.