Important Notice

"I must say that I find 'stillness' in a painting as mystifying as... 'movement.' I remember that when I went to Ladakh, everything was so still. I found a bleak landscape, almost like a desert, spread from one end to the other without a single visual break. I think some of my paintings I tried to do about Ladakh were like that - with hardly any break in the form." - RAM KUMAR

Painted in a sparse colour palette, the present lot... "I must say that I find 'stillness' in a painting as mystifying as... 'movement.' I remember that when I went to Ladakh, everything was so still. I found a bleak landscape, almost like a desert, spread from one end to the other without a single visual break. I think some of my paintings I tried to do about Ladakh were like that - with hardly any break in the form." - RAM KUMAR

Painted in a sparse colour palette, the present lot is likely inspired by Ram Kumar's visit to Ladakh in 1976, which prompted a series of works in the following decade, depicting its stark mountains and arid landscape. The artist has said, "The landscape haunted me for quite some time. Later when I tried to paint my impressions on canvas, I could not imagine any colors. The eternal silence of a wasted, barren earth which refused to compromise with man could not be visualized in any other colors except grey and black and white." (Artist quoted in Uma Prakash, Ram Kumar: Selected Works 19502010, New Delhi: Vadehra Art Gallery, 2010, p. 9) Desolate, yet meditative, the present lot was painted in 1990 following Kumar's first visit to the Leh district in Ladakh, and follows Kumar's long spiritual journey that began with Benares in the 1960s. "It was a lifelong effort to find some harmony between a rich, throbbing 'spiritually-visited' nature and the secret, fleeting thoughts of an artist." (Artist quoted in Prakash, p. 13)

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