Page 52 - Studio International - May 1966

Souza/Geoffrey/Rao

London commentary by Cyril Barrett

Recently we have had exhibitions by three painters from and Rama Rao came from remote parts of Pakistan and
the Indian sub-continent, with established or growing India. They both qualified for non-artistic professions:
reputations. Souza (GROSVENOR) has been in this country Geoffrey as a lawyer, Rama Rao in economics. Art was
since 1949 and had to struggle for recognition. But then not considered a serious profession in India; it was hardly
he is an individualist who fits into no category, western a profession at all. 'An "artist" was a fellow who could
or oriental, and imposes himself by his considerable talent. draw designs for pillow-cases, cushions and petticoats for
Iqbal Geoffrey (DRIAN), who is 27, came to London in girls to embroider, and paint your name and address on
1960 and was an almost immediate success. He has repre- your trunk, lest it be stolen on the Indian Railways, or
sented Pakistan at Sao Paolo and last autumn won a prize on your umbrella lest it be lost in the monsoon', writes
at the Paris Biennale. Rama Rao (BEAR LANE, OXFORD), Souza. Whatever other benefits the British Raj conferred
born 1936, came to the Slade in 1962 on a Common- on India, they did not include a flourishing tradition of
wealth scholarship. Last year he won the Lord Croft western or even westernized painting.
award at the Commonwealth Biennial of Abstract Art. What is less remarkable, perhaps, is that these artists
What is remarkable about all three is that they so rapid- should have discovered the art of their own cultural
ly assimilated the techniques and idiom of contemporary tradition at the same time as they became aware of the
western painting. Souza, it is true, had some contact with art of the west. The local art schools seem to have been
western art in Goa, but it was, to put it mildly, a rather as little interested in, or perhaps one should say, as hostile
impoverished version of Portuguese colonial, closer in to the indigenous art of India as they were to contem-
spirit to the late middle Ages than to our day. Geoffrey porary developments in western art. Souza became ac-

F. N. Souza
Maj olie 1965
Oil on canvas 40 x 30 in.
212