Head of a Man

F. N. Souza, the iconoclast, produced several works on Christian themes but those were mostly a sharp critique of figures of authority, especially the clergy. From the mid-1950s, Souza started drawing and painting a series of heads, mostly with contorted facial features to produce grotesque visages. This painting, Head of a Man, rendered in 1961, however, veers away from Souza’s more radical gestures, and depicts a man with an elongated face, a high forehead, and bulbous eyes. Using expressionistic brushstrokes, Souza emphasises the man’s high cheekbones that endow him with an aristocratic appearance. However, his eyes appear cold, fixing the viewer with a stony gaze, and his lips are pursed together in an apparent mark of disapproval.