Literature

Souza's fascination with the female subject continued throughout his artistic career, as seen in this work painted in 1984. Symbolic of femininity and fecundity, the figure in the present lot also draws from Souza's engagement with traditional African art, Byzantine icons, and the work of Picasso and the Spanish Romanesque painters, which he encountered after moving to London in 1950. Titled Odalisque, the present lot is perhaps a reference to the 1814 painting Grande Odalisque by the French Neoclassical painter Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, or a similar series by Henri Matisse depicting the 'odalisque' or the concubine, a popular subject in European art during the colonial era.

The present lot may be a continuation of Souza's previous attempts during the 1960s at reinterpreting - and in the process, subverting - famous Europeans paintings and themes. Of similar works such as the present lot, Mullins says, "There are the huge, fleshy nudes who sprawl over his canvases. These are not really erotic paintings in the true sense, but variations of a conventional theme explored by European artists... His nudes are only occasionally painted as beautiful or even as graceful...On the whole his paintings of nudes are more gentle than most of his other work; they have less impassioned ferocity about them. At the same time they are often the most perverse and obsessed... They suggest a personal fascination with the female body" (Mullins, pp. 42-43)

Works such as the present lot form a connection between the European art tradition and Souza's personal life, demonstrating how aptly he is able to manifest his own distinct personality on a subject that has been variously interpreted by Western artists over time.