Prinseps, in collaboration with Dhoomimal Gallery, presented F.N. Souza: A Continuum—a landmark exhibition marking the centenary year of Francis Newton Souza. Opening on March 25, 2025, in New Delhi, the exhibition invited viewers to look beyond the myth and into the inner world of one of India’s most influential modernists.
This first-of-its-kind, research-driven show brought together rare artworks, archival materials, and the deeply personal histories that shaped Souza’s artistic vision—culminating in a multi-generational legacy carried forward by his daughter Keren SouzaKohn and grandsons Solomon Souza and Ruben Souza.
Far from a conventional retrospective, F.N. Souza: A Continuum turned its gaze inward. It moved past the familiar narratives of rebellion and the oft-repeated enfant terrible label to reveal the complex, layered life of an artist too often defined by sharp lines. Rather than mythologize, it humanized—offering an intimate portrait of Souza as thinker, lover, writer, father, and fierce innovator. The exhibition traced the evolution of his identity through his relationships, literary fascinations, artistic obsessions, and the many geographies that shaped him.
To mark the opening of the exhibition, a special panel discussion titled Beyond the Enfant Terrible: Expanding the Discourse on F.N. Souza brought together Yashodhara Dalmia, Uday Jain, Indrajit Chatterjee, Souza’s daughter, Keren SouzaKohn and grandson Solomon Souza. Contributions from artist and J.J. School of Art alumnus Jatin Das in the audience and Theatre Actor and Scenic Designer Amal Allana further enriched the conversation, adding personal and critical perspectives to the legacy of Souza. [Watch the full panel discussion here.]
The themes explored in the panel—Souza’s literary leanings, his layered relationship with religion, and the cross-cultural influences that shaped his visual vocabulary—were echoed and expanded throughout the exhibition itself.
More than a retrospective, F.N. Souza – A Continuum was the culmination of over two years of research—an attempt not just to exhibit Souza, but to re-read him. The exhibition moved beyond the often-repeated narratives of rebellion and notoriety to reveal the full range of Souza’s artistic concerns, shaped by faith, exile, desire, and reinvention.
The exhibit highlighted the political and artistic climate of the 1940s in India, setting the stage for F.N. Souza’s early career and how he co-founded the Progressive Artists’ Group (PAG). It underscored the influence of anti-colonial movements such as the Quit India Movement, with prominent figures like P.C. Joshi, Mulk Raj Anand, and the Communist Party of India playing pivotal roles in shaping a politically conscious art scene. Additionally, the impact of European émigrés such as Walter Langhammer, Rudolf von Leyden, and Emanuel Schlesinger was explored, as they mentored Indian modernists and introduced them to European avant-garde movements. This environment fostered Souza’s dissenting voice and vision, influencing his trajectory before his departure for London in 1949.
Kiran Nadar, Indrajit Chatterjee and Uma Jain
While Souza’s debt to European modernism—especially Picasso—has long been acknowledged, A Continuum focused on what Souza did with those influences. Like Picasso, Souza was drawn to African masks. But rather than mimic, he internalized their language, channeling it into his Heads series. These were not mere stylistic exercises—they became meditations on alienation, social masks, and inner fragmentation.
Souza’s artistic evolution was shaped as much by literature as by art. While Picasso influenced his visual vocabulary, it was Franz Kafka who gave shape to his inner unrest. Kafka’s Metamorphosis (1915), with its image of Gregor Samsa transformed into an insect, struck a chord with Souza, resonating with his own feelings of estrangement, class alienation, and psychological fragmentation. This influence surfaced not only in Souza’s grotesque, mask-like figures but also in his writing—most notably in his 1955 short story The Nirvana of a Maggot, published in Encounter by Stephen Spender, in which he described his origins as “a maggot on a dung heap,” echoing Kafka’s themes of degradation and identity. Works like Nude Metamorphosed into Insect (1957) and Metamorphosis (1968) visualize this descent into the monstrous, blending insectile anatomies with the raw intensity of African masks. Across these works, Kafka offered Souza a language for exile, rejection, and transformation—one he carried forward through both pen and brush.
.jpg)
Another pivotal figure in Souza’s evolution was Liselotte Souza née Kristian (ancestry Kohn).— a Czech-Jewish émigré and RADA graduate. She was his partner, intellectual interlocutor, and muse. Their home in London was a space alive with music, ideas, and artistic dialogue. Through Liselotte, Souza entered a new creative phase, painting cultural personalities like Louis Armstrong and Igor Stravinsky, whose own radical vocabularies mirrored his own. These portraits, rich with sound and rhythm, spoke to a broader cultural engagement, moving Souza’s practice beyond Goan churches and Temple Dancers into the sonic landscapes of modernity.
.jpg)
Religion, however, remained a recurring axis in his work—not as doctrine, but as material. Raised in a devout Catholic household in Goa, Souza never entirely rejected the faith. Rather, he held up its symbols—Man in Tunic, Crucifixions, Last Suppers, Pietà—and interrogated them. The exhibition framed these works not as heresy, but as reckoning: visual theologies marked by longing, conflict, and critique.
One of the show’s most unexpected revelations was Souza’s drawing of a 12th-century mithuna sculpture from Puri, recreated from a photograph in Philip Rawson’s The Art of Tantra. Long believed lost, the sculpture lived on in Souza’s tracing—a quiet act of preservation and transformation that perhaps responded, knowingly or not, to Rodin’s The Kiss. Here, Indian sensuality and European form met in a single line.
Kiran Nadar and Indrajit Chatterjee
The exhibition also unveiled a quieter, lesser-known facet of F.N. Souza— the doting father. Through intimate letters written to his daughter Keren SouzaKohn, a portrait emerged not of the bold provocateur but of a man hunched gently over his desk, signing off with “Lots of love and kisses. Write me.” Known for his literary prowess in works like Nirvana of a Maggot and Words and Lines, Souza used letter-writing to remain tethered to those he loved. These handwritten pages softened the harsh contours of his public image, revealing tenderness and longing. Beyond the ink, the exhibition invited viewers into the small, sacred rituals of Souza’s domestic life: Keren sitting beside him as he painted, often on his haunches, the canvas laid flat before him. In such details—quiet, unspectacular, and human—the exhibition reframed Souza not just as artist or iconoclast, but as father and man.
What emerged through F.N. Souza: A Continuum was not just an artist who challenged norms, but one who constantly remade himself—who absorbed the world and reimagined it on his own terms. Through rare works, archival footage, and personal letters, the show revealed a Souza rarely seen: introspective, cerebral, tender.
Today, his legacy continues—through his daughter Keren SouzaKohn, her son Solomon Souza, and nephew Ruben Souza—each one drawing from his immense creative force in their own distinct idioms.
