FN Souza by Aziz Kurtha and Dog Ears etc
Leroy Veloso
Hi,
Just received from Queenie and Leonardo of Dog Ears Etc. a book ,Francis Newton Souza a coffee table book by Aziz Kurtha, which they have sourced for me from abroad.
The book is in mint condition and the content is really fascinating.
If your a book collector, do use their services, they are very competent.
They even brought the book to Panjim where i work and personally handed it over to me!.
Thanks again!
leroy
V M
--------------
Less than a decade ago, Aziz Kurtha filed a crushing lawsuit against
Francis Newton Souza. The artist was at a low ebb in his life, in a
period of being alone and isolated in his tiny, shabby New York City
apartment. The suit came as a shock to the aging perennial “enfant
terrible” of the Indian art world. Souza had been firing off angry
letters to a whole range of people, characteristic missives full of
bravado and condemnation for those he considered contemptible or
dishonest in their dealings with artists. He had certainly expected
controversy; to make and keep enemies for life, but still found
himself ill prepared to fend off this severe legal action.
Initially, Souza responded in a typically defiant manner. He showed up
to his deposition in a snarling, belligerent mood and ignored his
dismayed lawyer’s entreaties to remain calm and on topic. He then
launched into a lengthy, vitriolic diatribe, including a detailed
reprisal of all his charges against Aziz Kurtha. As if for good
measure, he included several other startling claims about members of
the Dubai-based lawyer’s family. Everyone present tried to keep him on
track at the beginning of his testimony, and then simply gave up and
let the artist’s corrosive anger run its course.
When the maelstrom passed, Souza appeared restored to his jaunty self,
he seemed to think he had sent a strong message that would be heard
and understood and would force a retreat. But the law doesn’t work
that way, the damage had been done. The artist was forced to spend
more than half of his accumulated savings to hire a superior attorney
to represent him, and then was compelled to apologize in writing and
make a financial settlement that left his bank account dangerously
close to empty. It was a severe blow that might have crushed an
ordinary person, especially a shaky septuagenarian who lived on his
own in unforgiving Manhattan. But not this son of Mumbai and Goa – he
simply said, “I will make more money”, and turned the page on what he
considered a regrettable chapter in his life.
Flip ahead to 2006, and the same Aziz Kurtha has self-published a
beautifully produced (by Mapin Publishing) book on the works of the
man whose bank account he once emptied. The bad blood appears
forgotten – nowhere in the book is a hint of the acrimony that once
compelled Kurtha to sue the artist. And you can see why the two did
maintain good relations at one time, Kurtha is a genuine enthusiast
for Souza’s inimitable oeuvre, and displays a fruitful hunger for
connections and context. His book is is oddly put-together, meandering
and occasionally quite incomprehensible, but it is also an extremely
valuable, and quite painstakingly detailed contribution to the meager
information resources we have about the man even M. F. Husain has
called “the most significant Indian painter.”
Souza’s story (including the contretemps with Kurtha that ends with
this posthumous tribute) in many ways minutely tracks the trajectory
of modern art in this country. His early strivings were barely
rewarding – there was some notoriety but very little money involved,
paintings sold for 50 and 60 rupees. The best support our pioneering
modern painters received was from each other – Souza’s Progressive
Artists Movement served as an invaluable crucible for many artists of
his generation, and their interaction and competition fuelled real
growth and development all through the lean years for Indian art right
into the new millennium. But it was largely impossible to satisfy
large-scale artistic ambition in India. Souza and others trooped out
to Paris and London and beyond in order to continue to learn and
develop, to engage with contemporary artists from other traditions and
find sustaining patrons.
At the time that Souza was compelled to refill his bank account after
Kurtha’s expensive legal action against him, the artist’s latest
canvases still sold for a couple of thousand dollars at best. He would
happily sell masterpieces from the 50’s and 60’s to collectors for
three or four thousand dollars, and could be pushed for even better
deals. In more than 50 years of prodigious output he never sold a
painting for more than 10,000 dollars, a benchmark that fell almost
immediately after he died on a trip to Mumbai in 2002. From there, the
top price paid for a Souza painting climbed rapidly to 50,000, then
150,000 dollars. In the last two years, they have doubled and doubled
again, and a kind of real frenzy has set in. The 1955 painting
‘Lovers’ that is reproduced on the back cover of Kurtha’s book sold at
auction in December, 2005 for just under 1.5 million dollars.
In retrospect, this upsurge was always inevitable, it’s just that no
one – artists and collectors alike – saw it coming. There is no reason
why the best contemporary Indian artists should not command the same
kind of prices as their contemporaries in Brazil, or China. If those
countries experiences are indicative. we still have plenty of room at
the top, and prices will not stabilize until they reach something like
an international standard. Certainly, the period of decades when you
could pick up an Indian masterpiece for the same price that you’d pay
to simply frame it in Manhattan is gone forever, and good riddance to
it.
Aziz Kurtha’s book feels a bit indiscriminate, there are more than 250
reproductions scattered throughout and many of them are mediocre and
uninteresting. But most of them are not – this book contains dozens of
must-see pictures that will be immensely rewarding for anyone
interested in art in general, modern Indian art, and especially Souza.
There are several priceless examples of the very earliest work,
executed in Souza’s teens and early twenties, including two stunning
paintings from his first solo show. Showstoppers continue, bold
canvases from the 50’s and 60’s, small jewel-like “chemical” paintings
from later years, a huge selection of classically crafted drawings,
and stunning monumental works like the 1962 ‘Death of a Pope’ which
would be prized by any modern art museum in the world.
Kurtha doggedly pursues the threads of Souza’s life, and must be
congratulated for the attention he has paid to detail. Particularly
interesting are the juxtapositions of Souza’s “tribute” works, homages
to Titian, Rembrandt, Matisse and others. The accompanying text is
rarely illuminative, but nothing more than the images are required for
a thought-provoking, revealing and highly educative survey of a
lifetime of work.
In the middle of Kurtha’s book, there’s a self-portrait from 1983, a
closely representative painting that looks quite a lot as though it
were painted from a reflection in an angled shaving mirror. Souza is
just as he was in real life – tiny, slightly pockmarked, wispy hair,
delicate bone structure, unkempt beard and whiskers. One eye peers
aimlessly in the distance, not squint but unfocused. The other looks
right into the soul of the viewer, it follows you inexorably and
almost burns a hole through the page when it is turned. That was and
is Francis Newton Souza, a magnificent artist who cannot be ignored.
He left an unerring, indelible mark on our culture for all times, this
book marks the beginning of a long overdue appreciation and
understanding of his worth.
> *** Please be polite and on-topic in your posts. ***
> ---
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Goa Book Club" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to goa-book-clu...@googlegroups.com.
> To post to this group, send an email to goa-bo...@googlegroups.com.
> Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/goa-book-club.
> To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/goa-book-club/2143332028.4561836.1486981891938%40mail.yahoo.com.
> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
--
#2, Second Floor, Navelkar Trade Centre, Panjim, Goa
Cellphone 9326140754 Office (0832) 242 0785
Augusto Pinto
It's interesting and will add to Souza's mystique.
Augusto
Sent from my iPhone
Leroy Veloso
Thanks so much Vivek for your review, and the " reality" about Aziz Kurtha.
Warm Regards,
leroy
--------------------------------------------
On Mon, 2/13/17, V M <vmi...@gmail.com> wrote:
Subject: Re: [GOABOOKCLUB] FN Souza by Aziz Kurtha and Dog Ears etc
To: "goa-book-club" <goa-bo...@googlegroups.com>
Date: Monday, February 13, 2017, 6:47 PM
Frederick FN Noronha * फ्रेड्रिक नोरोन्या * فريدريك نورونيا
Indian who felled Archer squabbles for art | ||
| AMIT ROY | ||
London, Feb. 6: The ownership of two paintings, worth a total of £300,000, by Francis Newton Souza — the distinguished Indian artist who died in Mumbai, aged 77, in 2002 — is being disputed in an unusual case which started yesterday in the high court in London. Aziz Kurtha, a Dubai-based businessman, and Michael Marks, an art dealer, both claim title to the works — Head Of A Portuguese Navigator and Chalice With Host. Back in the 1980s, Kurtha enjoyed centre stage in a high-profile drama in London involving a prostitute by the name of Monica Coghlan and the novelist (now Lord) Jeffrey Archer. Kurtha, described at the time as “an Indian businessman settled in London”, had paid Coghlan for her services on the night of September 8, 1986, and claimed that afterwards, as he dropped her off at Shepherd Market in Mayfair, he saw her being picked up by Archer. Coghlan did not recognise Archer, who, as a favourite of Margaret Thatcher, has become the powerful deputy chairman of the Conservative Party. But Kurtha did and informed Coghlan who her famous client was. Thanks to Kurtha’s intervention, Archer’s alleged indiscretions found their way into the tabloids. Archer, who was and is still married to a Cambridge academic, Mary Archer — the judge called her “fragrant” — sued and won £500,000 in damages. But in 1991, when it was proved that Archer had lied under oath after his alibi confessed to perjury, the novelist was jailed for four years. A decade later, Coghlan died, aged 50, when her car collided with that of a robber trying to make a getaway. Now, Kurtha, no stranger to the courts since he has a law background, is back at the centre of controversy again. Kurtha, who had once presented an Asian TV programme in Britain, moved to Dubai after the Archer case and devoted more time on building up an art collection. He would ring up journalists in Mumbai and boast about his extensive M.F. Husain collection. He also wrote a book about Souza, who was born in 1924 in Saligaon in Goa and shifted to London in 1949 where he lived and worked for many years before moving to New York. He is buried in Mumbai. In the current case, the two paintings, which date from 1961 and 1953, respectively, are in storage pending a ruling by the judge, Justice Tugendhat. Kurtha claims he bought them from Souza in New York in 1982 and that they have been stolen, while Marks says he bought them in good faith in January 2006. Kurtha’s counsel, John McCaughran QC, said the value of Souza’s work had increased greatly since his death. He said of Kurtha: “On any view, he is a genuine lover of his subject and has a great interest in it.” By the time Kurtha agreed to buy the pictures, as part of a consignment of 50 paintings and 100 drawings, for $25,000, he already had a substantial collection of Souza’s work. Kurtha told the court that he paid Souza $8,000 immediately with the balance staggered over two or three years. He arranged for art works to be shipped to London, where the majority were kept in storage with about 20 going to a house he had in Kew, west London, which was let to tenants between 1994 and 2001. When he discovered the two pictures were missing in May 2005, while researching his book, he registered them with the Art Loss Register. He claimed it was “preposterous” to suggest that he had never owned the paintings in the first place. Marks said in court that he purchased the paintings in January 2006 from a fellow dealer, Mario Demetriou, for £124,000 and had paid a deposit of £12,500 in cash. Demetriou said he had bought them the day before from another dealer, who had purchased them for £200 in 1999 from a woman who said she had been given them by her grandmother. |
_/
_/ Frederick Noronha http://about.me/noronhafrederick http://goa1556.in
_/ P +91-832-2409490 M 9822122436 Twtr @fn Fbk: fredericknoronha
_/ Goa,1556 shared audio content https://archive.org/details/goa1556
_/
_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/