Important Notice

Ram Kumar's paper works allow the artist to capture the essence of the landscapes and people he portrays. By combining two or more mediums, he effectively brings the viscera of his subjects to the fore. Some outline the bare details, shaping scenes out of obscurity. Others reflect the luxury of time; the details allow for a correlation to be formed between what the viewer sees and what he instantly recognises.

In the 1950s, many... Ram Kumar's paper works allow the artist to capture the essence of the landscapes and people he portrays. By combining two or more mediums, he effectively brings the viscera of his subjects to the fore. Some outline the bare details, shaping scenes out of obscurity. Others reflect the luxury of time; the details allow for a correlation to be formed between what the viewer sees and what he instantly recognises.

In the 1950s, many modern artists deviated from the feverish nationalist movements to seek a more individualistic style that gave their works a distinct stamp. Among these artists, Ram Kumar emerged with a powerful, humanist voice that set him apart from his contemporaries. The present lot falls into his early phase of figurative works, where his subjects appear lonely, brooding and lost in thought. Perhaps this owes to his time in Paris in the early 1950s, when he was a member of the French Communist Party. "He spent that decade...perfecting an elegiac figuration imbued with the spirit of tragic modernism. Infused with an ideological fervour, he drew equally upon exemplars like Courbet, Rouault, Kathe Koliwitz and Edward Hopper, dedicating himself to the creation of an iconography of depression and victimhood. He wished to design an idiom that would portray, at a pitch of stylised intensity the misery of the common people under the bourgeois-capitalist order" (Ranjit Hoskote,"The Poet of the Visionary Landscape", Ram Kumar: A Journey Within, Vadehra Art Gallery, 1996, pg. 37).

"There is no trace of seething rage nor any hint of a protest here. These men do not even need to speak to us. Their mere looks are enough to tell us all we want to know about them, all that has made them what they are" (Sham Lal, "Between Being and Nothingness", Ibid., pg. 16).

Read More
Artist Profile
Other works of this artist in: this auction  |  entire site