- 8
Ram Kumar
Description
- Ram Kumar
- Untitled
- Signed, dated and inscribed 'Ram Kumar / 59/ 23 x 20' on reverse
- Oil on canvas
- 22¾ by 20 in. (57.8 by 50.8 cm.)
Provenance
Condition
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Catalogue Note
Reflecting a sense of vulnerability and isolation, Ram Kumar was depicting the urban dwellers who felt constrained by the city. 'Somewhat marionette-like and angularly stanced with half gestures that seem to clutch at something precious, the boldly but starkly portrayed people [are] related to one another because of the pervading quality of introspection, of a searching for meaning, purpose, release which is written large on their countenances.' (Richard Bartholomew, "Attitudes to the Social Condition: Notes on Ram Kumar," Lalit Kala Contemporary 24-25, 1981, p. 31). 'Though I wasn't directly involved with the rehabilitation of people who had come from Pakistan during Partition, I was involved in some way with the refugee settlements in Karol Bagh and that definitely affected me,” the artist recounts. (The Hindu, Friday Review, Delhi, 17 December 2010). Ram Kumar has asserted that his brief dalliance with the communist movement in France also left an impact deep within.
This painting is highly demonstrative of the later years of the artist’s experimentation with figuration, and hints at the remarkable abstract architectural transformation his work was to undergo throughout the following decade. The two figures and their background merge into geometric abstraction, the individual elements demarcated by both colour and spatial planes, revealing the influence of the artist’s training under André Lhote and Fernand Léger during his studies in Paris from 1942-59, wherein individual elements of the composition are analysed, re-ordered from multiple perspectives and synthesized into a composite structure. Also inspired by Amedeo Modigliani, Ram Kumar used the tenets of Cubism and Expressionism to render his works. ‘Kumar’s early figural period presages his later work. He has claimed that in his cityscapes, he left behind the political in favour of self-reflection. […] Kumar may no longer engage in the heated debates of his youth, but his work continues to present a nuanced engagement with socio-political concerns.’ (Susan Bean, Midnight to the Boom: Painting in India after Independence, London, 2013, p. 92).