Osian's Auction Catalogue The Masterpieces Series | March 2010

71 The Masterpieces SerieS 38 r AmkumAr (b. 1924) Untitled Oil on canvas, 1968 Signed in Devanagari ‘Ramkumar’ and dated in English ‘68’ l.r. 41.2 x 70.1 in (104.6 x 178.0 cm) Provenance THE OSIAN’s COLLECTION. INR 12,000,000 – 18,000,000 US$ 250,000 – 375,000 “…in the late 1960s, his [Ram Kumar’s] paintings took on the character of abstractionist hymns to nature. Stripped of sentiment and freed from the burden of description, the landscape evolved into a grand metaphor, a crucible of meteorological energies, a dynamic equilibrium poised among tectonic forces of imperious majesty. In these works, Ram Kumar began to commemorate vast, epic images: the whirling onslaught of the storm, the grand descent of ragged forests along swollen rivers, the bronze echoes of the sun roaring above the cliffs, an eclipse falling like an eagle’s shadow across the shining glaciers.” – Ranjit Hoskote, ‘The Poet of the Visionary Landscape’, in Ram Kumar: A Journey Within, Vadehra Art Gallery, 1996, p.38. “By the late 1960s Ram decided to draw his images from both kinds of backdrop – of the late figural period, and of the early people – less landscapes. He took the abstract forms of the former period, and the textural impressions of the later. He compressed the separate messages and imagery and made them become one significant, meaningful unit. This compressed expression, which carries in it the abstract predicament of man, and the human and tactile feel of the living landscape, characterises the style of his recent painting, and; in fact, forms its very substance.” – Richard Bartholomew, ‘The Abstract As a Pictorial Proposition’, in Ram Kumar: A Journey Within, Vadehra Art Gallery, 1996, p.33.