Ram Kumar was a prolific painter and a passionate writer,
with a creative career spanning over seven decades since he gave up his job at
a bank to learn art under Sailoz Mukherjee at Sharda Ukil School of Art in
1948. Born into large family in Shimla, Ram Kumar initially pursued his MA in
Economics from St. Stephen’s College in Delhi. However soon after his
introduction to art, in 1949 he borrowed money from his father and travelled to
Paris to study art with the support of a French Embassy scholarship.
Ram Kumar was a vital part of the Indian modernist scene
and was associated with the Progressive Artists Group as well as the Delhi
Shilpa Chakra. Despite these associations he never easily fit into a simplistic
modernist narrative as he constantly sought to rediscovery of elemental origins
within the lingua franca of the landscape, and the spiritual properties of
meditative melancholia in the making and viewing of these abstract landscapes.
Ram Kumar has exhibited his works in solo and group shows
in London, New York, France, Japan and India. Significant shows include
two-person show with M.F. Husain in Delhi and Prague, (1967), Festival of India
shows in the then USSR and Japan (1987-88), The Moderns, National Gallery of
Modern Art (NGMA), Mumbai (1996), Works from 1940-1993, NGMA Delhi and Mumbai
(1994); Ram Kumar – A Journey Within, Vadehra Art Gallery, New Delhi (1996);
Ramkumar: A Retrospective, Aicon Gallery, London (2011); Ram Kumar and the
Bombay Progressives: The Form and Figure, Aicon Gallery, London (2013) and
Pioneers of Modernism, Sovereign FZE, Dubai (2013).
He went to the US after receiving the J.D. Rockefeller
III Fund Fellowship in 1970-71. He has been honored with Padma Shri by the
Government of India in 1972 and Kalidas Samman by the Government of Madhya
Pradesh in 1986.
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