A very happy birthday to F. N Souza!

Artists Francis Newton Souza was born on this day in 1942. One of India’s foremost art world maestros, this Goan man was well known for his wild ways and wilder paintings. He attended St. Xavier\’s College in Bombay, being expelled for drawing graffiti in a toilet which he claimed he was correcting, but the priests did not accept his claims. HE studied at the Sir J. J. School of Art in Bombay but was expelled in 1945 for his support for the Quit India Movement. As you can see, not the most agreeable man.

Francis Newton Souza was born to Roman Catholic parents of Goan origin in the village of Saligao, Goa. In 1929, after he had moved to Mumbai with his widowed mother, he survived an attack of smallpox which left him scarred for life. His grateful mother added Francis to his name, after St Francis Xavier, the patron saint of Goa.