The reticent modernist master, Ram Kumar was one of the most pathbreaking painters of a newly independent India who forged a distinct abstractionist language for Indian modernism.
Born in Shimla on September 23, 1924, in a family steeped with literary and cultural values, Ram Kumar was a multi-faceted talent who also continued to write fiction and other works in Hindi even as he scaled heights in the artistic world. His younger brother, Nirmal Verma was a renowned author in Hindi.
Kumar studied economics at St. Stephen’s College, Delhi University, while simultaneously attending evening classes at Sarada Ukil School of Art under Sailoz Mookherjea (who would go on to be one of India’s nine National Treasure artists).
After trying out Hindi journalism for a while, Ram Kumar headed to Paris to study painting under Andre Lhote and Fernand Leger (1949-1952). Upon his return, he maintained close contacts with the Progressive Artists’ Group, especially M. F. Husain, though he never formally joined the group. Post his European sojourn, his early figurative works became semi-figurative and later ended up being motifs of cityscapes and landscapes.
Husain was a close friend with whom Kumar first visited Varanasi in 1960, which would mark a turning point in his artistic career. He discovered his individuated abstractionist language and painted the ancient, holy city devoid of the hustle and bustle of the humanity that it is known for, creating some of his most groundbreaking works. Even as figures disappeared from his works, his palette became more muted and abstraction became predominant in his rendering of trees, habitats and geography of the landscape.
Kumar would go on to build upon this language to attain heights as a modern abstractionist of India. He received the National Award of the Lalit Kala Akademi in 1956 and 1958 and was honoured with the Padma Shri by the government of India in 1971.
He remains one of the most sought-after modern artists of India on the auction circuit even though he passed away at the age of 93 years in New Delhi on April 14, 2018.