Francis Newton Souza, well known as one of the famous Painter in the world and member of the Indian Progressive Artists’ Group has been in News. Most of his paintings are being sold by very big number. The reason was that one of his paintings has created a world record and it was sold for $4 million in Christie’s auction in New York. The oil on board painting that created a world record was ‘Birth’ and was painted in 1955.

Painting Sold For $4 Million:

The experts pointed out that this painting resembles the French Painter Manet’s ‘Olympia’. FN Souza died in the year 2002 and he estimated that the work to fetch between $2.2 million to $2.8 Billion. The previous record for the most expensive work by an Indian artist was held by V S Gaitonde whose luminous painting had sold for $3.79 million at Christie’s inaugural India auction in Mumbai in 2013.

‘Birth’ Souza’s creative output in the 1950s had previously also held the world auction record for being Souza’s costliest and worthy work when it sold for $2.5 million in a set at Christie’s auction in London in 2008. Souza’s ‘Man and Woman laughing’ fetched around $2.59 million in Saffron art sale in September.

‘Birth’, according to catalogue notes, the meaning of the painting is “uniquely encompasses all the subjects that define Souza’s early practice, including the pregnant reclining nude with hairpins, the autobiographical man in a priest’s tunic, a still life on the window ledge and, beyond the window, a townscape with corniced buildings and tall steeples.”