India's most important, and famous, modern artist Francis Newton Souza, was of a generation whose creative roots remained anchored securely and authentically to the expressive modernism inspired by Picasso.

Born in the Portuguese Catholic colony of Goa, Souza was brought up by his mother, a dressmaker. In 1929 after the family moved to Bombay, he survived smallpox - and his mother added the name Francis as a mark of respect to Goa's patron saint St Francis Xavier. Having been expelled from schools in 1937 and 1939, he entered the Sir JJ school of art in Bombay in 1940 (now Mumbai) where he was mainly taught the British academic tradition. He was expelled in 1945.

Over the years his subject matter remained consistent - crucifixes, last suppers, erotic nudes, the mother and child, still lives and landscapes. In later years he developed the "chemical works", a transfer process in which he could combine printed imagery with drawing and painting. (see note below)

But, for all this invention, in the end, Souza may best be remembered for his compelling paintings of Christ and the power of his erotically charged nudes. These were his subjects and the imagery of his most important works.

Francis Newton Souza, painter extraordinaire; born April 12 1924; died March 28 2002

CHEMICALS:

F. N. Souza invented a type of work on paper that he called chemicals. These are rendered images on pre-printed surfaces(such as pages from a magazine) altered with a special chemical solution, paints, coloured pencils & ink markers to create, or in Souza's language, "transcreate", an altered image & thus an altered perception of what constitutes art.
The chemicals, or chemical alterations as he called them in later years, are Souza's world & his unique contribution to the world of art. They spell out the new vocabulary we are inventing, in order to communicate our views & perceptions of the new world order all around us.

Souza's chemical alterations inject into the world of fine art the two-dimensional voyeurism that multi-media magazines promote over the internet or on video or in magazines.