If one were to ask what Souza remained tethered to, it was the red soil of Goa, carried with him across continents. A man in perpetual motion, he inhabited many lands, yet Goa remained his anchor. His childhood in Saligao, characterized by Catholic traditions, village life, and vivid imagery, shaped his artistic sensibility from an early age.
In his watercolours and gouaches from the 1940s, Goan women emerge in quiet strength—at work and prayer, on their way to church, or huddled in fields against the rain. These images echoed a familiar reality: men often left for work, while women held the home and community together. Even after leaving, Souza longed for Goa. In 1949, newly arrived in London, he confided in friends that he was homesick—not for Bombay, where he had come of age as an artist, but for the land of his childhood.
Goa, with its sensory richness, lived on in his work. For a boy in Saligao, nature itself was a gift. There were no toy stores for miles, and money was scarce, but there was endless joy in the crowing of cocks at dawn, running barefoot on the vast, open fields, and the main mud road that stretched from Mapusa to Panjim—his playground before it became a motif in his art.
“A beautiful country, full of rice fields and palm trees, whitewashed churches with lofty steeples; small houses with imbricated tiles, painted in a variety of colours. Glimpses of the blue sea. Red roads curving over hills and straight across paddy fields. Rich green foliage, mango trees, flowers, birds, serpents, frogs, scores of butterflies, and a thousand kinds of insects. Morning is announced by the cock crowing, the approaching night by Angelus bells.A beautiful country, full of rice fields and palm trees, whitewashed churches with lofty steeples; small houses with imbricated tiles, painted in a variety of colours. Glimpses of the blue sea. Red roads curving over hills and straight across paddy fields. Rich green foliage, mango trees, flowers, birds, serpents, frogs, scores of butterflies, and a thousand kinds of insects. Morning is announced by the cock crowing, the approaching night by Angelus bells.” [11]
Even after moving abroad, Souza remained deeply connected to Goa. In 1949, just after arriving in London, he admitted to friends that he was homesick—not for Bombay, where he had spent his adolescence and begun his artistic career, but for Goa, his anchor. His love for his homeland endured for decades, surfacing in his art and writings.
Untitled (Goan village), 1948,
Signed and dated ‘Souza 1948’ upper left and inscribed and dated FN SOUZA 1948 (verso)
Gouache on paper, 21 in x 14 in
Estimate: 35,00,000 - 40,00,000 INR
Provenance: Private collection, Delhi
Published and Exhibited in ‘Souza in the 40s’ by Grosvenor Gallery and Saffronart
