Important Notice

Born in Simla, at the foothills of the Himalayas, in 1924, Ram Kumar’s painterly ‘‘abstraction of mountains’’ mark his search for peace associated with homecoming, yet, the absence of the human figure or geographic context underscore his alienation during this journey.

This canvas, painted after the artist’s second visit to Ladakh in February 1993, reflects his fascination with solitude and his belief that certain natural environs can... Born in Simla, at the foothills of the Himalayas, in 1924, Ram Kumar’s painterly ‘‘abstraction of mountains’’ mark his search for peace associated with homecoming, yet, the absence of the human figure or geographic context underscore his alienation during this journey.

This canvas, painted after the artist’s second visit to Ladakh in February 1993, reflects his fascination with solitude and his belief that certain natural environs can help people escape the burdens and disarticulations of the man-made world they live in. In Ram Kumar’s opinion, then, the divine is well within our reach.

“With all the transcendental lyricism of his recent landscapes, Ram Kumar has never been attracted to the unearthly or other-worldly, his feet have always been planted in the terra firma, the palpable reality of the world. His ‘abstractions’ are not flights into the ‘unknown’, but like a shifting beam of light they move, passing through the entire space of the painting, from one segment of reality to another, uncovering the hidden relations, between the sky, the rock, the river. The sacred resides not in the objects depicted, but in the relations discovered.” (Nirmal Verma, “From Solitude to Salvation” in Ram Kumar – A Journey Within, Vadehra Art Gallery, 1996, p. 27)

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