EVENING SALE | LIVE, NEW DELHI (8 SEPTEMBER 2016)

200-201 / 256

200 Saffronart | Evening Sale
“... the first works of art which inspired Souza were the South
Indian bronzes and the high relief carvings on the Khajuraho
temples... Souza’s art has undoubtedly been greatly
influenced by both of these – especially by Khajuraho, those
‘mighty temples and pillars and many a carved figure of girls
wearing nothing but smiles more enigmatic than evenMona
Lisa could manage’, as Souza described them... The emphasis
of the definitive line to trace the twist and movement of the
human body; the impersonal, ritual treatment of sensuality;
the tendency to stylise objects so that they become stripped
of incidental detail; and the intuitive understanding of how
to treat a virtually flat surface in order to create the effect,
not of depth, but of movement; these are all important
components in Souza’s paintings and they stem more or
less directly from classical Indian art.” (Edwin Mullins, Souza,
London: Anthony Blond Ltd., 1962, p. 38)
75
F N SOUZA (1924 ‒ 2002)
Temple Dancer
Signed and dated ‘Souza 57’ (upper left); inscribed
and dated ‘F. N. SOUZA / TEMPLE DANCER - 1957’
(on the reverse)
1957
Oil on board
47.75 x 23.75 in (121.2 x 60.2 cm)
Rs 1,80,00,000 ‒ 2,40,00,000
$ 272,730 ‒ 363,640
PROVENANCE:
Christie’s, New York, 30 March 2006, lot 32
Private Collection, New Delhi
EXHIBITED:
Mumbai Modern: Progressive Artists Group 1947 ‒ 2013, Mumbai:
Delhi Art Gallery, 26 October ‒ 31 December 2013
PUBLISHED:
Kishore Singh ed., Continuum: Progressive Artists’ Group, New
Delhi: Delhi Art Gallery, 2011, p. 246 (illustrated)
Kishore Singh ed., Mumbai Modern: Progressive Artists Group
1947 ‒ 2013, New Delhi: Delhi Art Gallery, 2013, p. 291 (illustrated)
Kishore Singh ed., The Naked and the Nude: The Body in Indian
Modern Art ‒ Edition Two, New Delhi: Delhi Art Gallery, 2013,
p. 119 (illustrated)
Kishore Singh ed., A Visual History of Indian Modern Art, Volume
V: Rise of Modernism, New Delhi: Delhi Art Gallery, 2015, p. 1003
(illustrated)
Ganga , Eastern Madhya Pradesh, 8th century
Saffronart, Mumbai, 15 December 2015, lot 47
201