Francis Newton Souza (1924-2002)

F. N. Souza, had two distinctive styles in his approach to landscapes; works composed with strong cubist elements of geometric forms, and a lighter interpretation of nature with energetic fluid lines darting across canvas or board, outlining hills, fields, tree trunks and branches. In these playful creations, solid cubist diagonals soften to asymmetrical circles amongst splashes of colour applied within finer lines. His trademark bold black outlines do still remain although occasionally the thick black is substituted by colour and this later becomes characteristic of some of his paintings from the 1970s. In both cases the impasto of the 1950’s was abandoned for a flatter distribution of paint, with his palette knife or brush skimming past a point at times, to reveal the surface underneath.  This red landscape is one such work of the latter approach, typical in size and style of a group of work produced in 1961 while he was still residing in England.