Head (1952) was painted just a few years after Souza’s arrival in London in 1949. His previous work from his ‘Progressive’ phase, which can be categorised broadly as Indian social realist had little relevance in London and Souza needed to reinvent himself as a ‘British’ painter. He took on the task by studying the masters, which he could finally see in the flesh in the National Gallery for example, and to meet and see what other contemporary artists were doing in the galleries. These were lean years for the artist living in bedsits, but he was not alone, his wife Maria and new-born child Shelley were with him as well as his other fellow Indian artists.

Whilst it took until 1954 to have his break-through show in London he did manage to have exhibitions in Paris. And it was there that this work was painted. Souza shared a studio with Raza and Padamsee, these were a trio, visiting galleries and collectors together.
They had a joint show at the Galerie St Placide in 1952, and another one at the Galerie Raymond Creuze in 1953. Souza recounts a scene from these early days of Paris in his article for Thought in 1951: He tells of his meeting with Picasso at a palatial house of a famous Parisian art connoisseur ‘Madame C’, he had taken along Raza and Padamsee and were introduced as the ‘trois jeunes hindous’:

“We three… immediately started looking at the paintings which were hung all over the walls from the ceiling to the dado… Everything was done by one great French master or another. I couldn’t throw my coat over the sofa as the upholstery was done by Dufy; I walked over the carpets uneasily because they were designed by Miro; I didn’t know where to put the ashes of my cigarette, because all the ash-trays were designed by Picasso, and you’re not supposed to put ashes in an ash-tray made by Picasso; I don’t
know what it is for anyway, so I had to clandestinely put the ashes in my pocket.”

In this work Souza is engaging with the tradition of classical painting, in particular religious portraiture of the Renaissance of Bernini, Titian, Rafael, images which also come from his childhood Jesuit upbringing. He brings these Saints and Martyrs, of which he has a deep knowledge and understanding to life. Giving this particular Saint a 1950’s Paris mood and feel, this is achieved with the thick oil worked and cut onto the Masonite board with a palette knife, blending all the colours and paint in a lush and gloppy texture, outlined with a modernist black line. This is one of the earliest Heads of Saints that Souza would go on to develop and make his signature series.

This work was likely to have been exhibited at the Raymond Creuze group show. For the catalogue Souza chose a drawing of Christ as his image, whereas Padamsee chose his own version of a Saint in Tunic, which shows both artists sharing ideas and inspiration. (Incidentally the Padamsee was later listed as belonging to FN Souza, its present whereabouts is unknown).

This work was acquired from Souza by Victor Musgrave who was the pioneering owner of Gallery One who went on to become Souza’s agent and dealer from 1954-1963. The two of them worked brilliantly together, Souza providing Musgrave with an exciting and reliable series of shows and Musgrave finding a coterie of young and exciting collectors who frequented his bohemian gallery in Soho.

This work remained in the collection of Victor Musgrave, along with other major works by Souza, including the 1959 painting, Crucifixion, which was later sold to Tate by Julian Hartnoll in 1993. These Souza works were at the home in Hastings that Musgrave shared with a long-term girlfriend. In London, Musgrave had another parallel home and long relationship with the art dealer, Monika Kinley, and lived at her house in Lambeth. Kinley later ran the archive of Outsider art that he had started with Roger Cardinal. After Musgrave’s death, works from the Hastings house were sold, and this work was acquired soon afterwards by the previous owners, in whose collection it has remained since. This work was published 2002 in the catalogue for the Barbican exhibition ‘Transition: The London Art Scene in the Fifties’, a landmark exhibition curated by Martin Harrison.