- 1381
Ram Kumar (b.1924)
Description
- Ram Kumar
- Ruins
- Oil on canvas
- 55ΒΌ by 33 in. (140.2 by 83.8 cm.)
- Painted in 1972
Provenance
Thence by descent
Literature
Condition
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Catalogue Note
Painted in 1972, this untitled landscape is a resplendent example of the artist’s early experimentation with abstraction. In this work, the dramatic intensity of his early figurative paintings is retained in these canvases, executed in soft tones of ochre, umber and yellow which have now acquired a kind of austere brilliance, a certain ascetic purity. 'Ram Kumar addressed himself to the formal aberrations of mismatched planes, jamming the horizontal perspective against top views inspired by site-mapping and aerial photography, and locking the muddy, impasto-built riverbank constructions into a Cubist geometrical analysis. Gradually, the architecture drained away from his canvasses: society itself passed from his concerns, until, during the late 1960’s, his paintings assumed the character of abstractionist hymns to nature.' (R. Hoskote, Ram Kumar: Recent Works, SaffronArt & Pundole Art Gallery exhibition catalogue, May - July 2002, p. 6.)