He lived and painted in and around London’s Hampstead district
TWO HALF-BROTHERS from India were both artists, and spent time creating artworks in and around Hampstead. Lancelot Ribeiro (1933 – 2010) was one of them, and the other was his older and more famous brother Francis Newton Souza (1924-2002). Today (23rd of June 2024), we dashed up to Hampstead’s Burgh House to see an exhibition of works by Souza created when he lived in Hampstead and Belsize Park. This small, but superb exhibition closes today.
Born in Portuguese Goa, Souza studied art at the prestigious JJ School of Art in Bombay. A participant in the Quit India Movement, he was expelled from that school in 1945 when he pulled down a Union Jack flag at a school celebration. Souza migrated to the UK in 1949. By 1955, he was already making a success in London’s contemporary art world.
In London, Souza first lived in Paddington, then North Kensington, and by the mid-1950s, he had moved to Hampstead. By 1961, he had made enough money to buy a large house – number 9 Belsize Park. He remained there until he moved to the USA in 1968.
The exhibition handout (produced by London’s Grosvenor Gallery) described Souza as an Expressionist artist who:
“… conveyed the fear and anguish of the generation.”
One of the great fears was that of nuclear weapons. Souza became an anti-nuclear activist, taking part, for example, in the Aldermaston Marches. Three of the paintings at the exhibition, “The Mad Prophet of New York”, “The Apocalypse”, and “Oedipus Rex”, reflected Souza’s reaction to nuclear weaponry, and were painted during his time in the Hampstead area.
At least two of the paintings we viewed reflected Souza’s life in northwest London. One of them depicts a church in Chalk Farm (near Belsize Park), and the other, a parody of Picasso’s 1907 “Demoiselles d’Avignon”, has the title “Young Ladies of Belsize Park”.
The paintings were hung in the well-lit Peggy Jay Gallery in Burgh House, and were accompanied by informative panels. It is a shame that this excellent exhibition was only open for a few days (19th to 23rd of June 2024). I am glad that we made the effort to see it.
