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22
23
The show had made him a pivotal figure amongst the fraternity of artists in
Bombay. He surrounded himself with other young artists, poets and writers,
whose informal meetings would go on through the night. At these they hatched
the beginnings of a new visual language for an independent India. As Newton
himself said “
We were bold and full of fire…We were forging a modern Indian art
with a blast!
”
14
One meeting place was Chetana, a small, inexpensive vegetarian
café, the brainchild of the young writer Raja Rao. It had a bookshop and
exhibition space and attracted people like the Indian theatre director Ebrahim
Alkazi and his wife Roshen, and the artists Akbar Padamsee, Krishnaji Howlaji
Ara, Hari Ambadas Gade, Sayed Haider Raza, and Newton himself. When
together, it was Newton who generally held court “
the rest listening with rapt
attention as he goaded them on to overthrow the art establishment represented by the
Bombay Art Society and unite to initiate a new national art that could bridge the
widening gap between artists and the masses.
”
15
During this time, Newton also exhibited some of this paintings at the new
frame shop, Chemould, on Princes Street (a predominately Christian Goan
area of Bombay) opened by Kekoo Gandhy in 1946. However, his paintings of
Goan peasants were not received favourably by the locals, and Gandhy received
letters threatening to break the shop window if the paintings were not removed.
One such letter protested that ‘
Goan people did not look like that horriblest Francis
Newton paintings
’
16
.
Fortunately for Newton, the display was only temporary as the paintings were
on their way to the Silverfish Club, New Book Company, for Newton’s second
one-man show in July 1946. This exhibition was again reviewed by Rudolph von
Leyden exclaiming “
it looks as if Indian Goa has found an artist interpreter who will
insist on being heard and seen.
”
17
But the establishment itself still resisted Newton, and all the pictures he
entered for the Bombay Art Society Annual Exhibition of the same year were
rejected. Newton commented on his exclusion in 1976 saying “
I had begun to
notice that the J.J. School of Art turned out an awful number of bad artists year after
year, and the Bombay Art Society showed awful crap in its Annual Exhibitions which
comprised the amateur effort of some Memsahibs in India who were pampered by
British imperialism, hence their pretty-pretty paintings together with the work of the
several artist coming out of art school exhibited once a year in the Art Society had no
direction, no goal, no inspiration, no energy- regardless of the style or method they chose
to work in.
”
18
In 1947, Newton and his fellow artists had witnessed the results of the
Partition of India which saw religious rioting and the death of tens of thousands
of people displaced by the new borders. It was the impetus they needed ‘to
seek new standards in India, starting with their new style of art. To “
paint with
absolute freedom for content and technique, almost anarchic, save that we are governed
by one or two sound elemental and eternal laws, of aesthetic order, plastic co-ordination
and colour composition
”
19
They decided that strength lay in numbers and, “
ganging
up with the best and the most vital among us seemed to be a solution
”
20
. However,
this new dynamic group need members, a name, and a manifesto. Thus, ‘The
Progressive Artists Group’ was born.
View from Newton’s house in Crawford Market,
1945
, Bombay
Image © The Estate of Francis Newton Souza
Newton, aged
22
in Goa,
1946
Image © The Estate of Francis Newton Souza
View from Souza’s house, photos by Souza,
1946
, Bombay
Image © The Estate of Francis Newton Souza