Flowers

Notes

LOT ESSAY Souza can represent the essence of nature in a small, spontaneously assembled still-life or suggest in an equally small landscape the meaning of place and time - Richard Bartholomew, 1976 Like his portraits and landscapes, the genre of still life articulates the fundamental shift that transformed the oeuvre of Francis Newton Souza in the 1970s and 80s. In stark contrast to the immovable, monolithic vessels that dominated his earlier still-life paintings, the present lot, titled Flowers and painted in 1984, centers on an hourglass‑shaped vase set boldly against a bright yellow, orange and red background. Tentacle-like stems protrude from the blue vessel, bending and bowing under the weight of their blooms. Souza’s characteristic black draughtsman’s line persists, but here it appears more fluid and expressive, almost struggling to contain the composition and delineate distinct areas of color. Bright red and purple flowers erupt from the dense green leaves, most appearing to strain towards an unseen light source on the right of the painted surface, while a few recede into the shadows on the left. Souza’s vivid palette amplifies the vitality of his subject. The composition becomes a celebration of color, its intensity heightened by strategic touches of white that lend brilliance and lift. Unlike the artist’s still life paintings of the 1950s and 60s which were often charged with religious symbolism, the present lot is untethered from spiritual metaphor. In this work, Souza employs a bold palette and restless energy to transform a quiet domestic arrangement into something pulsing, immediate and alive. Flowers, with its blossoms at the height of bloom, becomes a celebration of life itself – exuberant, ecstatic and wholly unrestrained.