Important Notice

Ram Kumar is best known for the abstracted landscapes that defined his oeuvre for more than six decades. His engagement with the subject began in the early 1960s after a transformative visit to Benares, which prompted him to move away from naturalism and figuration. From that point onward, the landscape became the central subject of his practice, although his treatment of it continued to evolve over the years.

The Cubist‒inspired... Ram Kumar is best known for the abstracted landscapes that defined his oeuvre for more than six decades. His engagement with the subject began in the early 1960s after a transformative visit to Benares, which prompted him to move away from naturalism and figuration. From that point onward, the landscape became the central subject of his practice, although his treatment of it continued to evolve over the years.

The Cubist‒inspired architectural forms that had once served as backdrops for the isolated, disenfranchised figures of the 1950s gradually came to dominate the picture plane before eventually displacing the human figure altogether. Although fascinated by urban environments, Kumar repeatedly returned to the mountains, including the landscapes of his hometown, Shimla. Drawing increasingly from nature, he developed a distinctive language of planar abstraction. Rather than depicting identifiable places, he distilled the landscape into its essential forms, removing specific geographical references. These later paintings draw upon memories of the Himalayan foothills and his travels across India to evoke expansive, uninhabited terrains.

Composed of jagged planes of colour, Kumar’s landscapes present austere topographies that contain few natural or man‒made markers. In works such as the present lot, the artist employs a multiplanar perspective that, in the words of Ranjit Hoskote, “translates the landscape into a system of lines, planes, blocks; their machine‒edged logic, entering into dialogue with texture and tone, govern the distribution of significant masses over the picture space... He does not mirror reality, but subjects it to a prismatic analysis: his topography, for instance, is a diagram of forces in a field rather than a picturesque postcard view; each city, each trapfall is a summation of views from various angles, arranged on the same plane for the discernment of the viewer.” (Ranjit Hoskote, “The Poet of the Visionary Landscape”, Gagan Gill ed., Ram Kumar: A Journey Within, New Delhi: Vadehra Art Gallery, 1996, p. 38)

Colour assumes a primary structural role in Kumar’s paintings, organising the composition while shaping its emotional register. As Meera Menezes observes, “The variegated colours of these irregular planes are suggestive of tracts of sea and sand, of rocky mountains and flat fields, of barren, parched earth and fecund vegetation. It is left to colour and brush strokes to transmit the moods and sensations that the various topographical elements convey. Perhaps they even represent the more unseen but perceived elements in the phenomenal world—the warm sunshine, a cooling breeze, the dampness of mists or hot, gusty winds. Ochres, rusts, yellows, greens, mauves, and ultramarine blues are orchestrated together to produce complex colour symphonies, which induce alternate feelings of both movement and stillness.” (Meera Menezes, Ram Kumar: Traversing the Landscapes of the Mind, Mumbai: Saffronart, 2016, p. 13)

Without recognisable landmarks, the present lot relies on colour, line, and form to suggest hills, mountains, rivers, and geological formations without defining them explicitly. This ambiguity invites viewers to engage with the painting through perception, memory, and imagination. Richard Bartholomew captures this quality in Kumar’s work: “When I see a Ram Kumar painting... I get the feeling that I’ve been there before... The very forms of the composition suggest that. The hard and the soft, the tangible and the elusive, the structure and the sensation... Ram’s work draws us into its field of vision, involving us visually, stimulating us to see this detail or that... There is great depth, in perspective and feeling. The experience encountered is extremely refined. A reductive principle in composition and an immaculate technique determine the scale.” (Richard Bartholomew, “Ram Kumar ‘73”, Rati Bartholomew, Carmen Kagal and Rosalyn D’Mello eds., Richard Bartholomew: The Art Critic, New Delhi: Bart, 2012, p. 536)

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