Ram Kumar - Indian Art News

The abstractionist: Ram Kumar’s art

visionsart — Sat, 20 Jun 2015 04:11:00 +0000

The opening sequence of Laurent Bregeat’s Ram Kumar: Nostalgic Longing, a documentary on Ram Kumar, shows the ageing artist, bent over his easel, drawing lines and curves with charcoal on a white canvas. “Ultimately nothing may remain of these shapes, but this is just an exercise in trying to find out something (…) important,” he says, as the camera zooms in on his face. Through Bregeat’s 48-minute film, the camera returns to this painting as it comes to life with every successive dab of oil paint. It’s fascinating to watch layers of yellow and green, dulled cream and translucent white fall over Kumar’s canvas and get shaped into abstraction with his palette knife.

Ram Kumar in a still from the film by Laurent Bregeat.

Kumar, now 91, is one of India’s most renowned abstract modernists, whose oeuvre evolved from figurative to abstract landscape over a successful career spanning more than 60 years. In the film,, we see one phase segue into another, each distinct for its colour palette as for the evolution of the artist’s thoughts and inspirations.

The first screening of this five-year-old film in Mumbai will take place as part of an event planned around an exhibition of Kumar’s works at the Jehangir Nicholson Gallery in the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya (CSMVS), Mumbai. The film was made in 2010 as part of a series on four modernists—Akbar Padamsee, M.F. Husain, S.H. Raza, were the other three—commissioned and produced by the Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi. Dadiba and Khorshed Pundole, who run Pundole’s auction house, asked the director to make another four films on other Indian modernists. The new films by Bregeat are on Krishen Khanna, Rajendra Dhawan, K.G. Subramanyan and Krishna Reddy, the last of which has only just been edited.

It’s a valuable endeavour, especially since the moderns drive Indian art auctions worldwide.

Kumar’s story however, refers to none of that—shop talk is eschewed in favour of artistic practice. The film begins with Kumar talking about the first time he saw a painting, as a final year postgraduate student of economics in New Delhi. He began taking evening classes under Sailoz Mukherjee, a prominent modernist in whom Kumar found a “profound and sensitive” teacher. In 1949, the artist borrowed money from his father and travelled to Paris on a princely scholarship of Rs.100 from the French embassy. There, he studied art from Cubist painter Fernand Léger and sculptor and figurative painter André Lhote. Unsurprisingly, when Kumar returned a year later, his first flush of works were figurative paintings. But the landscape of the city with tall buildings with squarish windows filled the background. Italian film-maker Roberto Rossellini told Kumar that these figures reminded him of Franz Kafka’s stories. “My figuratives were more of the urban predicament, fuelled by socialist realism,” says Kumar. In 1958, another visit to Paris, where he spent six months staying with close friend Raza, yielded further changes to his figures, but all that changed when the artist visited Varanasi shortly afterwards.

The historical city in Uttar Pradesh was, then as now, crowded, colourful and bustling. Kumar went with Husain, and the duo would spend all day—separately—roaming the ghats, sketching what caught their fancy. The effect it had on Kumar was “not just visual, but also psychological,” the artist says, adding that he made it a point to visit Varanasi several times afterwards. The landscapes that emerged in this prolific phase of the artist’s life depict a vivid range on the colour palette: from dull greys and mustards, to bright bursts of greens, blues and yellows.

Kumar says he never studied the science of colours, but his later works—inspired by the bare greens and browns of the Himalaya in Ladakh—prove his uncanny sense of achieving maximum visual effect from the colours he chose to deploy on canvas. Painting, says Kumar, who also wrote short stories in Hindi as a young man, is not like a novel, which has a definite ending. “Painting is a continuity. One painting leads to another. What you want to say is not finished with one painting,” he says.

Ram Kumar: Nostalgic Longing will be screened on 23 June, at 5.30pm, at the Visitor’s Centre Auditorium, Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya, Kala Ghoda, Mumbai.

A new biopic on one of India’s last great moderns explores his ideas and artistic practice
Dhamini Ratnam

The post The abstractionist: Ram Kumar’s art first appeared on Indian Art News.

Works worth Rs. 12cr stolen from painter Ram Kumar’s house

visionsart — Wed, 24 Sep 2014 07:17:00 +0000

Three paintings made by renowned artist Ram Kumar, valued at around Rs. 4 crore each, have been stolen from his home in east Delhi’s Preet Vihar.

The 90-year-old is one of the most important names in modern Indian art and a contemporary of other greats like MF Hussain, SH Raza and Tyeb Mehta.

The stolen canvases were part of his signature Sad Town series painted in 1956 – a dark body of work depicting India in industrial transition, with the country’s mega towns battling unemployment, rising prices and migration from villages.

Kumar was decorated with the Padma Bhushan, India’s third-highest civilian honour, in 2010 and the Padma Shri in 1972.

Kumar stored the valuable paintings for the last five years in the basement of his home in east Delhi’s Bharti Artist Colony, where he lives with domestic help BB Shankar.

The theft was discovered on Sunday after Kumar’s son—settled in Australia — visited the Bharti Artist colony house and advised the artist to shift the works out of the basement studio.

“On Sunday, we went to the basement and found three canvases missing. Some other items were also missing but the three ‘Sad Town series’ paintings were the costliest. They have won several awards, including the Lalit Kala Academy award,” Kumar told HT.

According to the artist, a painting of his Sad Town series was sold for Rs. 4 crore during an international exhibition in London last year.

He said the stolen paintings were last displayed in an exhibition at the Lalit Kala Academy in Delhi four years ago.

Ajay Kumar, deputy commissioner of police (east), confirmed that a case of theft had been registered at Preet Vihar police station and a team formed to probe the crime.

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A Celebration of South Asian Modern + Contemporary Art at Christie’s in September

visionsart — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 07:24:00 +0000

Jitish Kallat, Dawn Chorus- 7, 2007. Photo: Christie’s Images Ltd 2009. Jitish Kallat, Dawn Chorus- 7, 2007. Photo: Christie’s Images Ltd 2009.

Source – Artdaily.org

New York

Christies South Asian Modern + Contemporary Art sale will feature over 100 works from the leading 20th and 21st century artists from South Asia, including artists from India and Pakistan. The sale will focus on prime examples of many different movements and styles and highlights will include works from modern masters Tyeb Mehta, Francis Newton Souza, Syed Haider Raza and Ram Kumar as well as works from leading contemporary artists Rashid Rana, Jitish Kallat, Thukral & Tagra among others. Christie’s pays tribute to Tyeb Mehta (1925-2009), who recently passed away, and with whom Christie’s shared a great friendship as well as many successes. The September sale celebrates his genius by presenting works from different periods of his oeuvre. The cover lot of the sale is Two Figures, a signature work from 1994 estimated at $600,000 to $800,000. The painting bears a strong relation to the themes from Mehta’s Celebration, which sold at Christie’s New York in September 2002. The theme draws inspiration from the Charak festival, the Spring Festival of the Santhals, celebrated in Eastern India. Another notable highlight is Mehta’s Mahishasura (estimate: $600,000-800,000), which refers to the traditional Hindu tale of the Warrior Goddess Durga slaying the Buffalo Demon, Mahisha. Another version from this series realized $1,584,000 in September 2005 at Christie’s New York and established a world auction record for a Contemporary Indian painting. It was the first work in the category to break the million dollar mark. Ram Kumar apprenticed with Fernand Léger in Paris during the 1950s and was inspired by Modigliani, which is evidenced in one of his last figurative works Untitled, 1960 (estimate: $70,000-90,000). Ram Kumar was then to abandon figuration after a pivotal journey to Benares, a city by the banks of the Ganges, which is reflected in Untitled (Benares), 1963 (estimate: $60,000-80,000). The work is painted with an architectural formalism that in reality would be chaotically teeming with bathers and pilgrims. Benares as the Eternal City has since pre-occupied the artist for over four decades and he described his first visit to the city as having “…left an everlasting impression on my artistic sensibility.” The auction further includes an excellent selection of Modernist works led by Syed Haider Raza, Francis Newton Souza, and Vasudeo S. Gaitonde. Raza’s Le Maquis, 1965, (estimate: $300,000-500,000) meaning scrub or bush, is an important work from Raza’s abstract expressionist period. Painted in shades of yellow and green, the work represents his childhood memories of his home in the deep, warm forest of Kakaiya, India. Souza’s Nude with Mirror, 1963, (estimate: $300,000-500,000) is a unique work from the early 1960s in which he dehumanizes the female nude with a violent expression similar to the faces painted by Pablo Picasso and Francis Bacon. Gaitonde’s Untitled (estimate: $150,000-200,000) displays the artist’s purist style via a shimmering, uncluttered composition. Rashid Rana is one of the best known multi-media Pakistani contemporary artists and his Red Carpet- 2 (estimate: $120,000-180,000) is paradoxically an object of gruesome beauty. The work imitates the pixilated architecture of an actual carpet, which is created from hundreds of composite images of goats being slaughtered, arranged to form a stunning impression of the traditional carpets of the region. Amongst a fine group of Modern and Contemporary Pakistani works featured are Sunrise (estimate: $40,000-60,000), a 1968 canvas by Sadequain (1930-1987), who was one of Pakistan’s best known and most prolific painters and Untitled (estimate: $60,000-80,000) by Jamil Naqsh (b.1939), which depicts his long-time companion and fellow painter Najmi Sura holding a bird. Jitish Kallat has emerged as one of India’s leading artistic voices and Dawn Chorus- 7, 2007 (estimate: $80,000-100,000) is his most celebrated series. In this work, Kallat found inspiration from young boys peddling goods to commuters in the crowded Bombay streets. He replaced the boys’ hair with towering, tightly packed cityscapes celebrating their resilience and entrepreneurship. Elsewhere in the sale other contemporary works include Anju Dodiya’s Opus, 2007 (estimate: $80,000-100,000), Bhupen Khakhar’s Shahrukh with Southern Stars (Two sided cut-out figure), 2000 (estimate: $40,000-60,000), and Thukral & Tagra’s Phone Now +91 114174 0215, 2006 (estimate: $25,000-35,000).

The auction takes placeon 16th September

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Christie’s New York Presents an Outstanding Sale of South Asian Modern + Contemporary Art

visionsart — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 17:09:00 +0000

artdaily

NEW YORK.- After the spectacular success of Christie’s South Kensington sale on June 2008 which set numerous world auction records, this season Christie’s New York is pleased to announce the sale of South Asian Modern + Contemporary Art on 16 September. The sale will offer major works from modern masters like Tyeb Mehta, Maqbool Fida Husain, Ram Kumar, and Jagdish Swaminathan, to cutting edge artists such as Subodh Gupta, Riyas Komu, Jagannath Panda, and Rashid Rana. The sale of over 120 lots is expected to realize in excess of $12 million.

South Asian Modern
After establishing the world auction record at $1.9 million Christie’s will be putting Tyeb Mehta in the spotlight again with Untitled (Yellow Heads), 1979 (estimate: $600,000-800,000). Since his early years as an artist, Mehta has used the canvas to express images in his most unique formal treatment that illustrates the struggles of contemporary society. His encounter with minimalist art, especially Barnett Newman, during his year long stay in New York in the late 1960s, has had far reaching influence in the entire opus of the artist’s career. By selectively utilizing formal elements of both minimalism and abstraction, Mehta, through a balance of form and color, reconstructs the figure in a lyrical synchronization—creating a style uniquely his own.

Self-taught artist, Maqbool Fida Husain, played an instrumental role in the development of modern and contemporary art in India. Referred to as the ‘Picasso of India’ by Forbes magazine and a founding member of the revolutionary Progressive Artists Group (PAG), Husain developed a style that merged Cubism, Expressionism, and Abstraction with traditional Indian forms and iconography. Ritual, 1968 (estimate: $600,000-800,000) is one of the most significant works by Husain and a suburb example of the fusion of Indian themes and Modernist style. Adopting the formal attributes of sculpture, Husain gives weight to each line and color constructing an image of female elders in a style which highlights the integral role of women in Indian society. Last spring, Christie’s once again proving its dominance in the market, achieved the world auction record for the artist at $1.6 million.

The sale also features an important figurative work by Ram Kumar who drew upon the influences of Amedeo Modigliani, Edward Hopper, and Fernand Legér. The record for the artist was established at Christie’s when Kumar’s Vagabond was auctioned for $1.2 million. Untitled, 1961 (estimate: $400,000-600,000), depicts a young girl against a dark backdrop. The artist utilizes the characteristically pure line of Modigliani in the oval face and deep dark eyes, balanced delicately on an elongated neck. In this painting spatial depth is created with tonal variation and texture that translates into the artist’s later landscapes; making this work a critical bridge between the two stylistic idioms. This enigmatic and suggestive portrait is a simple yet forceful characterization by a master.

Contemporary Art
Among the contemporary art offerings, Subodh Gupta takes center stage with four works of art. Gupta draws heavily from his own experience in culling material for his art, recasting traditional objects of Indian culture in contemporary media and contexts. This is evident in the stainless steel canisters and utensils used in Miter, 2007, number three from an edition of three, (estimate: $600,000-800,000). These everyday, utilitarian forms are taken out of their normal context and elevated to the status of luxurious commodities. In turn these utensils celebrate Indian tradition and culture through its very exploitation. In June 2008 at Christie’s London, the similar sculpture Untitled, achieved $1.18 million setting a new record for the artist. Like Jeff Koons’ charmed hearts and balloons, the shiny reflective quality ensures that the surrounding environment becomes part of the work. A true multimedia artist, Gupta moves between sculpture and paintings. In his painting, Steal 2, 2007 (estimate: $800,000-1,000,000) Gupta displays his virtuosity as a painter by combining pop and photorealist aesthetics into a uniquely Indian style.

Writer, political activist and painter Jagdish Swaminathan, was known to draw inspiration from folk and tribal art, miniatures and Indian mythology for his paintings. His painting, Untitled (Bird Mountain Series), 1973, (estimate: $300,000-500,000) is an expression of the artist’s perception of the “virginal state” of nature. Mountains, trees, rocks, and birds juxtaposed against pure expanses of color- induce a meditative stillness. Swaminathan’s vision of his mystical
landscape with weightless apparition-like forms floating in a luminous space brings to mind images of Paul Klee and Pahari miniatures paintings. A cornerstone to one of Swaminathan’s most well known series, Untitled, 1973, epitomizes the artist’s ability to capture the poetic grandeur of the natural world and immeasurable vastness of the spiritual realm in a solitary intimate reflection.

Another highlight comes from Rashid Rana, Pakistan’s most celebrated and well-known artist. Two Dimensions, 2007, (estimate: $80,000-120,000) depicts a monolithic skyscraper is a composite image made from ‘pixels’ of everyday Pakistani street scene. Rana uses his native urban environment of Lahore for inspiration and combines single tableaux of day-to-day life in grand compositions of contemporary existence. The duality of the image along with the ‘double take’ it creates is a key feature of Rana’s digitized imagery. Rana’s work has been showcased internationally and was featured at the Grid <> Matrix held in 2006 at the Kemper Art Museum alongside masters such as Piet Mondrian, Agnes Martin, Robert Rauschenberg and Andreas Gursky.

Already holding Riyas Komu’s world auction record, set in Hong Kong, Christie’s is pleased to be offering Designated March of a Petro – Angel (or Desert March), 2006, (estimate: $60,000-80,000). Exhibited in the Arsenale of the 52nd Venice Biennale, 2007, this work is part of a larger series of six works featuring the actress from the Iranian film ‘Circle’ gazing in different directions. This painting addresses the plight of humanity in societies targeted by larger power-hungry nations or ‘neo invaders’. Komu depicts the actress enrobed in a head scarf, her gaze transfixed on an unknown object or person beyond the edge of the canvas. Through her anonymity, she becomes the symbol of universal womanhood and Komu’s composition becomes a tribute to the spirit of ordinary people with the extraordinary strength to survive.

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Tagore, Husain, Raza to go under hammer at Osian’s ABC auction

visionsart — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 04:28:00 +0000

7 Jul, 2008
Ashoke Nag, ET Bureau

KOLKATA: Leading auctioneer Osian’s is coming up with the fifth edition of its ABC (Art, Books and Cinema) series sale soon. The auction sports a total estimated value of Rs 24-25 crore, comprising 201 lots. Of these, 132 are paintings, 20 are books, while the rest embraces movie memorabilia.

The 132 lots of paintings encompass 25 contemporary works and the rest are modernist, post-war modernist and Bengal School. A Ram Kumar figurative from 1967 is estimated at Rs 2-2.5 crore, while a 1980 Raza Bindu is pegged in the band of Rs 1.6-2 crore. In the same breath, an MF Husain untitled is hovering in the range of Rs 80 lakh to Rs 1 crore and Krishen Khanna’s ‘The Rider’ will go under the hammer in the range of Rs 36-45 lakh.

The contemporaries find Atul Dodiya’s ‘Random Verse’ priced at Rs 72-90 lakh and a Surendran Nair watercolour, Darwaaza Kholo, which is estimated at Rs 16-20 lakh. The Bengal School section is being led by the three Tagores, Rabindranath, Abanindranath and Gaganendranath. The Tagorean pieces are estimated between Rs 16 lakh and Rs 20 lakh.

In step, a large drawing by Nandalal Bose from the Ajanta series dated 1909-10 is valued at Rs 10-12 lakh and a set of 20 pencil and ink drawings by Jamini Roy are placed at Rs 12-15 lakh. The auction is also offering a Gaitonde drawing in the bracket of Rs 10 lakh. In the list are also a Bikash Bhattacharjee at Rs 48-60 lakh and Jogen Chowdhury’s ‘Two Women’ from 1994 going for Rs 40-50 lakh.

“We are also bringing some works by Palsikar, an influential teacher of the 1950s, who taught artists like Bendre, Kulkarni and Kolte. The Palsikar works are ranging anywhere near Rs 6-7 lakh mark. In tandem, the auction is placing under the hammer a set of 47 rare drawings by Serbjeet Singh on the Kashmir War, titled ‘Jojila’. Singh did these works at the site of the war in 1948. The drawings are priced at Rs 24-30 lakh,” Osian’s chairman Neville Tuli told ET.

Mr Tuli added: “The momentum is returning now on a much deeper level. This is also being spurred by financial institutions and museums which are renewing their collecting habits for Indian, Asian and Arab art. There is a major infrastructural change which is happening across the world as art is now being recognised as a credible capital asset for all medium and long-term portfolio. This auction will take forward the development of Indian film memorabilia market and show the continuous strength of the domestic art scene.”

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