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65
The 1960s were a time of experimentation as artists delved
deeper into their search for a national and personal identity
through art. The monochromatic palette was explored by
several artists, including Ram Kumar, who was during this
time, also making a transition to abstract landscapes. Akbar
Padamsee’s exhibition of Greyworks in Mumbai in 1961 may
have led to an added enthusiasm for this exploration. In 1961,
Ram Kumar painted a similar monochromatic work titled
Greek
Landscape
, perhaps in homage to Padamsee’s masterpiece with
the same name. Between 1960 and 1964, Kumar continued to
experiment with shades of grey, oscillating between pure and
literary styles of abstraction.The present lot retains the remnants
of figuration, as seen in the clearly decipherable buildings and
what may be interpreted as a human face peering down on
the scene, while veering towards the non‒figurative landscape
compositions that were to become the defining vocabulary of
his later phase. As the “sternest and the most austere [period]
in his career... colour and the complexity of imagery determined
the mood of the painting.” (Gagan Gill ed.,
Ram Kumar: A
Journey Within
, New Delhi: Vadehra Art Gallery, 1996, p. 30) J
Swaminathan wrote of this phase of Kumar’s work: “He is
able to transfer the unrelieved sadness of his male and female
figures to the very tones of his colours, so that... he achieves
an abstraction which oozes with a melancholy music, soft and
gentle and remote, vaguely disturbing.” (The artist, quoted in
Gill, p. 76)
PROPERTY OF A MIDDLE EASTERN
CORPORATE COLLECTION
27
RAM KUMAR
(b. 1924)
Untitled
Inscribed and dated 'RAM KUMAR 65' and bearing Gallery
Chemould label on the stretcher (on the reverse)
1965
Acrylic on canvas
36 x 24 in (91.4 x 61 cm)
Rs 50,00,000 ‒ 70,00,000
$ 79,370 ‒ 111,115
EXHIBITED
Ram Kumar: Selected Works 1950 ‒ 2010
, New Delhi: Lalit Kala
Akademi, 14‒20 December 2010; New Delhi: Vadehra Art Gallery,
23 December 2010 ‒ 10 January 2011
PUBLISHED
Uma Prakash,
Ram Kumar: Selected Works 1950 ‒ 2010
, New Delhi:
Vadehra Art Gallery, p. 47 (illustrated)
Ram Kumar at the opening of his
solo exhibition,
Recent Works by Ram
Kumar
, organised by Saffronart and
Pundole’s, 2002