Francis Newton Souza (b.1924 d.2002)

Selected Paintings from the Artist's Estate

Souza wrote on the back of this painting that Suruchi Chand was the only woman he'd met who had stayed with Picasso in the south of France. In the same year, 1984, Souza painted a picture that he called "Portrait of Picasso," which is also in the collection of the estate.

 According to his 1982 diary, Souza met Suruchi Chand on March 18 at the Lalit Kala Academy in New Delhi, at a seminar on the Arts; the subject was "Interdependence and Autonomy of the Arts in a Changing World." About Suruchi he writes:

"I will have to collect my thoughts because her intoxicating perfume is still in my head and intoxication makes a scatterbrain, and a scatterbrain cannot recollect the sequences in order. [He added afterwards in the margin, marking the addition with an asterisk at this point in his writing] She's like swallowing a glass of brandy: the bouquet hit me first and then her spirited conversation began working on me. [His journal entry continues] I will write at length about this girl, woman, lady, goddess--this intellectual and artist, this lovely wholesome gorgeous broad. She's excited me; a rare peak. Suruchi has a retinue of men hanging round her on the reak [sic] of her scented pheromones."

Souza journaled much more about his relationship with Suruchi Chand but for now the painting is the important thing. The echoes of cubism play on Suruchi Chand's acquaintance with Picasso.

Click on the link below to see a drawing made in 1982:

 Suruchi Chand. Pencil on Paper, 1982.

View Selected Works:

Works on Paper
Drawings
Chemicals

About the Estate

"Portrait of Suruchi Chand," 1984. oil on masonite. 76.2 x 60.96 cm