Profile:

F.N. Souza completed his degree in art education from the JJ School of Art.  He founded the Progressive Art group, Bombay, in 1947. Souza was expelled for participating in the Quit India Movement while studying at the Sir J.J. School of Art in Mumbai. In 1947 he founded the Progressive Artist\'s Movement along with S.H. Raza, M.F Husain and K.H. Ara. Of all his contemporaries from the Progressive Artists' Group, of which he was the main ideologue, Souza was perhaps the single real international success. An articulate genius, he augmented his disturbing and powerful canvases with his sharp, stylish and provocative prose.

His unrestrained and graphic style creates thought provoking and powerful images. His repertoire of subjects covers still life, landscape, nudes and icons of Christianity, rendered boldly in a frenzied distortion of form. Souza's paintings express defiance and impatience with convention and with the banality of everyday life. Souza's works have reflected the influence of various schools of art: the folk art of his native Goa, the Renaissance, the religious fervor of the Catholic Church, the landscapes of the 18th and 19th century Europe and the path-breaking paintings of the moderns. A recurrent theme in his works is the conflict in a man - woman relationship, with an emphasis on sexual tension and friction. In his drawings, he uses line with economy, while still managing to capture fine detail in his forms, he also uses a profusion of crosshatched strokes that make up the overall structure of his subject. In 1949 he left for London where, after a few years of struggle, he began to make a mark on the art scene. In the 1950\'s, Souza shot to fame with his one-man show at Gallery One in London, which is also when his autobiographical essay "Nirvana of a Maggot" was published. In 1967, he migrated to New York  where he settled till he passed away in 2002.

Education : 

J.J. School of Art, Mumbai.

 Major Exhibitions:

Gallery One in London,

Tate Gallery, London and the National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi.

Gallery Creuze, Paris, in 1954,

 Arts 38, London, in 1975 and 1976,

Bose Pacia Modern, New York, in 1998.

Awards:

Guggenheim International Award

Collection:

Various art collectors in India and abroad