Head of a Man
- Artist: F.N. Souza
- Date: 1965
- Medium: Oil paint on hardboard
- Dimensions: support: 758 × 606 mm
- Museum: Tate Modern
- Collection record: Tate Modern website
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About this artwork
This is the “Head of a Man” by F.N. Souza, painted in 1965 in London. The work is a striking expressionist portrait rendered in thick black impasto on a black background. Souza’s brushwork and palette knife strokes are bold and energetic, carving out the man’s shoulders and face with dramatic outlines that reveal the large eyes, nose, lips and ears. He chose black deliberately, arguing in 1966 that it was “the most mysterious of all colours” and rejecting the idea that black was a void in the canvas. The piece comes from a series of all‑black paintings made for his 1966 Grosvenor Gallery show “Black Art and Other Paintings.” These works challenged the then‑conservative British art scene, which expected an Indian artist to paint in bright, exotic hues. The painting was presented by Souza’s family in 2014 and now lives in a London modern gallery.
See it in person
Head of a Man is in the collection of Tate Modern on Bankside, London — free to enter. Point your phone at any artwork there and audioguide.london plays a free audio guide in six languages — no app download needed.
