Oedipus, the legendary figure from the play by Sophocles is a complex character who is abandoned by his mother at childbirth but survives neither knowing his parents nor his royal birth. As a young man he is made King of Thebes in gratitude for his freeing the people from the pestilence. He marries the recently widowed Queen only to find out too late that she is his long-lost mother and that the man he had killed some years earlier was in fact his own father. On realizing this dreadful truth, he pokes out his own eyes and exiles himself from his own Kingdom. The current work depicts Oedipus with bandaged eyes and mutant hands raised in front of him to feel his way.

Portraits of kings, emperors or politicians were some of Souza's most favored subjects but his depiction of them is often less than flattering and fitted with his highly critical view of persons in power. The current work however appears more sympathetic towards the tragic king and it is clear even from his writing that Souza identifies in some ways with the character, stating, 'I've always had a curious feeling of an ancient guilt that I killed my Father because he died so suddenly after my birth. My Mother too was like the mother of Oedipus; spartan in shape. She was temperamentally unpredictable and very sophisticated. I used to watch her bathe herself through a hole I had bored in the door. I was afraid that if she thrust something in, I might get a bleeding eye-ball. I drew her on the walls and prudes thought I was rude. I can't see why because as far as I can recollect I had even painted murals on the walls of her womb...In the act of being created I created.' (F. N. Souza, Words and Lines, London, 1997, p. 25).

Text from Gallery One and the Indian Avant Garde:
In this work Souza portrays Oedipus, the mythical king of Thebes, who famously fulfilled a prophesy that he would kill his father and marry his mother. Souza saw parallels between his experience as a child and the story of Oedipus:
“I’ve always had a curious feeling of an ancient guilt that I had inadvertently killed my father because he died so soon after my birth. My mother was like the mother of Oedipus; spartan in shape. She was temperamentally unpredictable and very sophisticated.”1

This painting was first shown to the public in Souza’s 1961 exhibition at Gallery One and was illustrated in the catalogue. It also reproduced in Edwin Mullins’ monograph on the Artist, published in 1962. Alongside the image runs the quote; “I express myself freely in paint in order to exist. I paint what I want, what I like, what I feel.”2

The painting then travelled to The Stone Gallery in Newcastle upon Tyne, for Souza’s one-man show there in 1962. This exhibition contained several important paintings such as Tycoon and Tramp and Negro in Mourning as well as two Crucifixions, one of which was the most expensive painting in the show, priced at £1,000. Oedipus Rex was the second most expensive at £500. In one review the critic for The Northern Echo wrote; “But it is as a man crying out in the wilderness against the tragedy of his time that he paints anguished portraits of Prophets, Martyrs, Tycoons, Tramps, Spanish Saints and Negroes in Mourning. Many of these have their eyes high up in their foreheads “the better to see with the brain” and Oedipus Rex, behind the blindfold and multiplicity of fingers, has no eyes at all. All in all these things are very strong meat indeed – hardly the sort of effete wall decorations to be lived with at close quarters in the average drawing room. It would take a deal of courage to own one.”3

Visual comparisons can be drawn with another painting from 1961, The Apocalypse, show in a series of photographs taken in Souza’s studio by Musgrave’s wife Ida Kar. That year Souza states; “I started using more than two eyes, numerous eyes and fingers on my paintings and drawings of human figures when I realised what it meant to have the superfluous and so not need the necessary. Why should I be sparse and parsimonious when not only this world, but worlds in space are open to me? I have everything to use at my disposal.”4