Lot 57

 

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"As a young artist, Ram Kumar was captivated by, or rather obsessed with, the human face because of the ease and intensity with which it registers the drama of life. The sad, desperate, lonely, hopeless or lost faces, which fill the canvases of his early period, render with pathos his view of the human condition.”
(Sham Lal, “Between Being and Nothingness”, Ram Kumar: A Journey Within, New Delhi: Vadehra Art Gallery, 1996, p.... "As a young artist, Ram Kumar was captivated by, or rather obsessed with, the human face because of the ease and intensity with which it registers the drama of life. The sad, desperate, lonely, hopeless or lost faces, which fill the canvases of his early period, render with pathos his view of the human condition.”
(Sham Lal, “Between Being and Nothingness”, Ram Kumar: A Journey Within, New Delhi: Vadehra Art Gallery, 1996, p. 15)

Buoyed by the success of his first solo exhibition in Simla in 1949, Ram Kumar took a leap of faith and left India by boat on a one-way ticket to France. He was inspired perhaps by his friend S H Raza, one of the members of the Bombay Progressive Artists’ Group who was preparing for his own move to Paris, and hoped that pursuing an education in the vibrant artistic hub would help him overcome his own shortcomings as a young artist. Kumar trained under André Lhote and Fernand Léger, both influential French painters of the time. During his stay, he also mingled with several prominent, left-leaning writers and poets, including Louis Aragon, Roger Garaudy, and Paul Eluard, and briefly joined the Communist Party. While he never fully embraced Communism, it made him sensitive to social inequality and human suffering, which went on to profoundly shape his early artistic career.

On returning to Delhi in 1952, Kumar focussed on figurative works that reflected the despair and desolation he observed around him in the aftermath of the Partition of India in 1947. These figures became symbols of rising social and economic inequality and unrealised promises in a post-Independent India. As critic Richard Bartholomew writes, “...in Ram Kumar’s paintings of the 1950s one recognised the dramatis personae as city people in a city environment circumscribed by the constrictions of urban society and motivated by conflicts which ensue from dense population, unemployment, artificial relationships [...[ Somewhat marionette-like and angularly stanced, with half-gestures that seem to clutch at something precious, these boldly but starkly portrayed people related to one another because of the pervading quality of introspection, of a search for meaning, purpose, release which was written large on their countenances.” (Richard Bartholomew, “Attitudes to the Social Condition: Notes on Ram Kumar, Satish Gujral, Krishen Khanna, and A. Ramachandran”, Richard Bartholomew: The Art Critic, Noida: BART, 2012, pp. 114-115)

The figures that Kumar painted during this period mirrored the characters of his first novel, Ghar Bane Ghar Toote, a story about the plight of homeless, dispossessed refugees of the Partition in the Karol Bagh neighbourhood of Delhi where he lived. Writer Prayag Shukla remarks, “There are situations where it seems that Ram Kumar’s characters are afraid to confront life. As if an awareness of how fragile the others in their weak moments can be, makes them more considerate, more compassionate. In a way, Ram Kumar’s stories are deeply humane. They never end a thing with a bang, they never try to denigrate or hurt the other. They are the narratives of half-said, unsaid things. One may complete them for oneself, or one may carry them inside oneself in their awkward incompleteness.” (Prayag Shukla, “The Artist as the Storyteller”, Gagan Gil ed., Ram Kumar: A Journey Within, New Delhi: Vadehra Art Gallery, 1996, p. 214)

The present lot is a poignant portrayal of two figures, barely clothed, with elongated necks, vacant eyes, and melancholic expressions that convey silent suffering-hallmarks of Kumar’s figures. Though his style is distinctly his own, the artist seems to draw inspiration from Italian painter Amedeo Modigliani’s unique style of portraiture, which was distinguished by his soft palette, asymmetrical compositions, elongated figuration, and simple but powerful lines. Rather than depictions of specific people, Kumar’s figures are representative of the human condition at large. “…we see Ram Kumar’s theatre sense growing. The décor became abstract, convoluted, and the locale symbolic. The faces were more eloquent, the stances more intimate and tender. There was passion and there was prayer, and though sorrow was a large theme, hope was not entirely absent.” (Richard Bartholomew, “The Early Years”, Ram Kumar: A Journey Within, New Delhi: Vadehra Art Gallery, 1996, p. 43)

The painting is likely one of Kumar’s later figurative works. The geometric cityscape that his figures once stood against is now barely discernible, reduced to flat, muted planes of colour. The figures seem to almost merge with the background, suggesting a fading into obscurity, their suffering and very existence overlooked by their fellow men. “Gradually, Ram intensified these compositions by filling the picture frame with fewer figures placed boldly and dramatically in the foreground, and by stripping the background of any specific locale [...] The spectator could concentrate on the figure now and consider it as a symbol; and the figure drew part of its force from its inevitable association in form and feeling with its equivalence as background.” (Bartholomew, “Nature and Abstraction: An Enquiry into Their Interaction”, p. 110)

Kumar produced very few figurative works in his lifetime, making the present lot particularly rare. The painting hints at a transitional phase in his practice, foreshadowing his eventual abandonment of the human form and the shift toward purely abstracted landscapes from the 1960s. The work is also of distinguished provenance having been part of the collection of Chester and Davida Herwitz. The couple first travelled to India in 1961 and formed close relationships with several leading artists, including M F Husain and Ram Kumar, over many subsequent visits. Comprising around 3000 works, the Herwitz Collection is one of the largest and most comprehensive collections that document the development of several prominent modern and contemporary Indian artists. Many of these works have been exhibited at the Tate Gallery, the Museum of Modern Art in Oxford, the Centre Pompidou, the Chicago Institute of Art, and the Worcester Art Museum. Some are now part of the permanent collection of the Peabody Essex Museum, to which they were gifted in 2001.

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