Born in 1924 in Shimla, Ram Kumar was among India’s leading modernists. He studied Economics at St. Stephen’s College, New Delhi, in 1946. Following this, he went to Paris to study painting under Andre Lhote and Fernard Leger in 1949-1952. When he was studying Economics at St Stephens College, young Ram Kumar would often visit the art exhibitions in the galleries around the Mandi House area during lunch breaks. As these visits became more frequent, he realised his passion for art was not just restricted to appreciating art but practicing the form himself. Kumar begin by studying art at Sarada Ukil School of Art in New Delhi. Then, fate took over and the talented young artist soon found his way to Paris to study painting. It was in Paris that he began to produce his early fig...
Born in 1924 in Shimla, Ram Kumar was among India’s leading modernists. He studied Economics at St. Stephen’s College, New Delhi, in 1946. Following this, he went to Paris to study painting under Andre Lhote and Fernard Leger in 1949-1952. When he was studying Economics at St Stephens College, young Ram Kumar would often visit the art exhibitions in the galleries around the Mandi House area during lunch breaks. As these visits became more frequent, he realised his passion for art was not just restricted to appreciating art but practicing the form himself. Kumar begin by studying art at Sarada Ukil School of Art in New Delhi. Then, fate took over and the talented young artist soon found his way to Paris to study painting. It was in Paris that he began to produce his early figurative works that marked his obsession with the human form, especially the face.
On his return to India, he became friends with the art critic Richard Bartholomew and began to regularly exhibit with the Delhi Silpi Chakra, thus becoming one of India’s emerging young painters by the mid-fifties. He received the National Award in 1956 and 1958 and was awarded the Padma Shri by the Indian government in 1971. Ram Kumar was also a prolific Hindi writer.
He is one of those artists whose work is difficult to be placed, rather frozen within the simplistic narratives that have developed around modern Indian art. Although Ram Kumar, much like many other artists from the subcontinent who studied in Paris in the 1950’s, returned from Europe with a semi figurative style that drew on post-cubism, he eventually chose to abandon the same to begin working almost exclusively with the motifs of abstract cityscapes and landscapes.
A turning point in his art career came in 1960 when Ram Kumar visited Varanasi with M.F. Hussain in 1960. This led to a significant change in his style. Dark colours were abandoned, and blues, greys and tawny yellows took over. The widows of Banaras, the sorrow of humanity and the eternal echo of the life cycle of death and birth inspired Ram Kumar’s work in a new direction and thus begin the journey of looking inwards through landscapes.
Like several first-generation post-colonial artists such as F.N. Souza, S.H. Raza and Paritosh Sen, Ram Kumar combined a desire for global success with a strong need to belong to his homeland. His landscapes are devoid of the usual constituents of reality. The land, trees, sky and water are not portrayed in their natural forms but rather are strongly suggestive of abstract landscapes.
