Ram Kumar

Christie's New York, 17 October 2001, lot 223

There are scattered areas of craquelure throughout the canvas but primarily in the upper third section of the painting. The craquelure has been stabilised. Areas of wear and frame abrasion around the perimeter.
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This important semi-abstracted work from 1959 belongs to Ram Kumar's early figurative phase where he chose to portray the monotony and decay of urban existence endured by the middle-class. His works from this period not only reflect his disillusionment but are also part of a larger commentary on the despair and desolation experienced in India due to the unrealised promises of a better life after Independence. The figures he depicts in these paintings are reminiscent of the forlorn characters he portrays in his novel, Ghar Bane Ghar Toote that was written after Partition. The novel narrates the grim tale of the homeless and dispossessed people. '….It is as if the muted characters of his novel, the refugees, leave the shelter of the written page and get transmuted into the shadowy squatters of his paintings….' (Gagan Gill ed., Ram Kumar: A Journey Within, New Delhi, 1996, p. 22). Usually garbed in suits and other European attire, Ram Kumar addressed the reality of metropolitan life at the time in India by quietly highlighting the struggle of the masses.

Reflecting a sense of vulnerability and isolation, Ram Kumar was depicting the urban dwellers who felt constrained by the city. 'Somewhat marionette-like and angularly stanced with half gestures that seem to clutch at something precious, the boldly but starkly portrayed people [are] related to one another because of the pervading quality of introspection, of a searching for meaning, purpose, release which is written large on their countenances.' (Richard Bartholomew, "Attitudes to the Social Condition: Notes on Ram Kumar," Lalit Kala Contemporary 24-25, 1981, p. 31).  'Though I wasn't directly involved with the rehabilitation of people who had come from Pakistan during Partition, I was involved in some way with the refugee settlements in Karol Bagh and that definitely affected me,” the artist recounts. (The Hindu, Friday Review, Delhi, 17 December 2010). Ram Kumar has asserted that his brief dalliance with the communist movement in France also left an impact deep within.

This painting is highly demonstrative of the later years of the artist’s experimentation with figuration, and hints at the remarkable abstract architectural transformation his work was to undergo throughout the following decade. The two figures and their background merge into geometric abstraction, the individual elements demarcated by both colour and spatial planes, revealing the influence of the artist’s training under André Lhote and Fernand Léger during his studies in Paris from 1942-59, wherein individual elements of the composition are analysed, re-ordered from multiple perspectives and synthesized into a composite structure. Also inspired by Amedeo Modigliani, Ram Kumar used the tenets of Cubism and Expressionism to render his works. ‘Kumar’s early figural period presages his later work. He has claimed that in his cityscapes, he left behind the political in favour of self-reflection. […] Kumar may no longer engage in the heated debates of his youth, but his work continues to present a nuanced engagement with socio-political concerns.’ (Susan Bean, Midnight to the Boom: Painting in India after Independence, London, 2013, p. 92).