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PROPERTY OF A GENTLEMAN, NEW DELHI
97
RAM KUMAR
(b. 1924)
Leh
Signed and dated 'Ram Kumar 1980' (on the reverse)
1980
Oil on canvas
72.75 x 51.5 in (185 x 130.5 cm)
$ 140,625 ‒ 187,500
Rs 90,00,000 ‒ 1,20,00,000
PROVENANCE:
Acquired directly from the artist
"As I began to paint, the landscapes came naturally and gradually,
the outlines faded into abstracts... There is an enigmatic mystery
about the inner life of a colour applied on canvas. It stands out by
itself in the beginning but slowly it starts building up relationships
with other areas, other colours, and forms. This continues. There
is a pause, a silence, an accident and in the end some sort of
harmony.”
RAM KUMAR
Ram Kumar visited Ladakh twice, in 1976 and 1993, each
time painting a series of works afterward inspired by the
colours of the stark mountains and arid landscape, as
seen in the present lot. The artist says, “The landscape
haunted me for quite some time. Later when I tried to
paint my impressions on canvas, I could not imagine
any colors. The eternal silence of a wasted, barren earth
which refused to compromise with man could not be
visualized in any other colors except grey and black and
white.” (Artist quoted in Uma Prakash,
Ram Kumar:
Selected Works 1950‒2010
, New Delhi: Vadehra Art
Gallery, 2010, p. 9)
The artist is well‒known for painting abstract–sometimes
desolate, yet meditative–landscapes inspired by his
travels around the world. The present lot, painted in 1980
following his first visit to the Leh district in Ladakh, is part
of his long spiritual journey that began with Benares in
the sixties. “It was a lifelong effort to find some harmony
between a rich, throbbing ‘spiritually‒visited’ nature and
the secret, fleeting thoughts of an artist.” (Artist quoted
in Prakash, p. 13)
EXHIBITED:
Ram Kumar: Selected Works 1950‒2010
, New Delhi: Lalit Kala
Akademi, 14 ‒20 December 2010; Vadehra Art Gallery, 23
December ‒ 10 January 2011
PUBLISHED:
Uma Prakash,
Ram Kumar: Selected Works 1950‒2010
, New
Delhi: Vadehra Art Gallery, p. 79 (illustrated)
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