06 Aug 2022 | 05:02am IST
Finding the rightful place for Fonseca
Angelo da Fonseca has largely been forgotten in Goa, but with the efforts of Gerard Da Cunha and Delio Mendonca his work is back in the limelight with the release of the coffee table book, ‘Fonseca’, today. They share their experience of exhibiting his 126 paintings for a Goan audience as a preview to the book
Dolcy D’Cruz
"Angelo da Fonseca created
more than 1,000 paintings, mostly in watercolour, and several sketches, during
40 long years. Although the market was never Fonseca’s priority, it was not
easy either to sell his paintings or live by them. When Fonseca died in 1967,
there were “more than 500 religious paintings,” left unsold”, says historian
Delio Mendonca, the author of the coffee table book, ‘Fonseca’, which will be
released today, August 6, at Central Library, Panjim, at 6.30pm. Mendonca will
also present a slide lecture on the life of Angelo da Fonseca at the function.
Regarded as one of the greatest of Indian modernists of the 20th century, his
works were never really understood then, which made him turn away from Goa and
live his artistic life in Pune.
The
book is lavishly illustrated with 126 colour plates and it analyzes Fonseca’s
contribution to Indian art. Mendonca is the former director of the Xavier
Centre for Historical Research, where Fonseca’s widow, Ivy Muriel, before her
death in 2015, had transferred the entire collection of the artist’s work to
the Centre. Mendonca, who presently teaches at the Pontifical Gregorian
University in Rome, has been closely working with the works of the artists for
many years. He says, “I am very grateful to Architect Gerard da Cunha, a friend
and the publisher of the book ‘Fonseca’, for giving me the opportunity to
deliver this lecture on the occasion of the release of the book; and for
organizing this beautiful exhibition of paintings of Fonseca as well as this
function.”
To mark Fonseca’s 120th
birth anniversary, prints of all 126 of his known paintings were exhibited over
a period of two months at two venues, Clube Harmonia in Margao and at the
Central Library in Panjim. “There are two reasons for the exhibitions and the
book. Firstly, he largely has been forgotten in Goa as he was a revolutionary
artist who portrayed Jesus Christ and Mother Mary as locals on canvas; and
secondly, Delio Mendonca has been struggling for so many years to release a
book on Fonseca,” says Gerard Da Cunha, curator of the exhibitions.
Speaking at the exhibition, the Archbishop
of Goa and Daman and Cardinal-elect, Rev Filipe Neri Ferrão, while opening the
Angelo da Fonseca’s exhibition in Margão, said, “Angelo da Fonseca created an
astounding Indian Christian iconography that seamlessly blended both, Eastern
and Western influences as well as traditional and innovative trends. In doing
so he invited the ire of many of his own fellow-Christians, who thought he was
creating anti- Catholic paintings, by depicting, for example, the Virgin Mary
as a Hindu woman wearing a sari and a bindi. This was understandable to some
extent, as the norms in church art and sculpture ninety years ago were largely
dictated by the European school.”
