Download PDF (40 K)RAM KUMAR
Ram Kumar lives and works in New Delhi. Ram Kumar, like many of his confreres among the first generation of post-colonial Indian artists - including such figures as F N Souza, M F Husain, Paritosh Sen, Jehangir Sabavala, Krishen Khanna, S H Raza and Akbar Padamsee - combined an internationalist desire with the need to belong emphatically to their homeland. In its internationalist mood, this generation looked to the early 20th-century modernisms of Paris, London and Vienna for inspiration; its need to belong prompted an interest in the construction of a viable "Indian" aesthetic that bore a dynamic relationship to an Indian identity. With Ram Kumar, this quest for an indigenist tenor has not meant a superficial inventory of "native" motifs offered as evidence of a static and essentialist Indian identity. Instead, he demonstrates that a painter can enact the innermost dramas of his culture while maintaining the individuality, even idiosyncrasy of his performance. - Excerpts from "Parts of a World: Reflections on the Art of Ram Kumar" by Ranjit Hoskote, 2002
Born 1924, in Simla
Education
1949-52 Atelier Fernand Leger and Andre Lhote, Paris
Evening Classes at the Sharada Ukil School, New Delhi
M.A. in Economics from St. Stephen's College, Delhi
Selected Solo Exhibitions
2005 Pundole Art Gallery, Mumbai
2002 Recent Works, IndoCenter in Chelsea, presented by Saffronart and The Pundole Art Gallery
Saffronart and Pundole Art Gallery, Mumbai, New Delhi, San Fransico, New York
2000 Landscapes from New Zealand, Vadehra Art Gallery, New Delhi
1999 Pundole Art Gallery, Mumbai
1998 A Gallery, New York
1997 Arks Gallery, London
1996 Pages From a Sketch Book, Pundole Art Gallery, Mumbai
1994 Jehangir Art Gallery, organized by Vadehra Art Gallery, New Delhi
1993 Vadehra Art Gallery, New Delhi
1992 Vadehra Art Gallery, New Delhi
Pundole Art Gallery, Mumbai
1991 Chitrakoot Gallery, Kolkata
1990 Pundole Art Gallery, Mumbai
Center for Contemporary Art, New Delhi
1988 Works on paper, Alliance Francaise, New Delhi
1986 Pundole Art Gallery, Mumbai
1984 Pundole Art Gallery, Mumbai
1883 Pundole Art Gallery, Mumbai
Works on paper, Miskole, Hungary
1981 Works on paper, Pundole Art Gallery, Mumbai
1980 Art Heritage, New Delhi
Asian Artist, Fukuoka Art Museum, Japan
1979 Chanakya Gallery, New Delhi
1978 Pundole Art Gallery, Mumbai
1977 Chanakya Gallery, New Delhi
1976 Pundole Art Gallery, Mumbai
1974 Gallery Chemould, Mumbai
1973 Pundole Art Gallery, Mumbai
1971 Pundole Art Gallery, Mumbai
1968 Dhoomimal Art Gallery, New Delhi
1966 Gallery Chemould, Mumbai
Grosvenor Gallery, London
1965 Kunika Art Center, New Delhi
1959 Sao Paulo Biennal
1958 Venice Biennale, Italy
1957, 59 Tokyo Biennale, Japan
Selected Group Exhibtions
1995 Joint exhibition with Jogen Chowdhury, Gallery Raku, Japan
1988 Three Indian Artists, Karachi, Pakistan
1987, 88 Festival of India shows in the then USSR and Japan
1987 Coups de Coeur, Geneva, Switzerland
1985 Artistes Indiens en France, Foundation Nationale des Arts Graphiques et Plastiques, Paris
1973 Indian Contemporary Painting, a traveling exhibition in the U.S. and Canada
1967 Joint exhibition with M.F. Husain in Delhi and Prague, Czechoslovakia
1957 Eight Indian Artists, Graham Gallery, New York
Seven Indian Painters in Europe, Gallery One, London
Awards and Schloraships
1956 National Award, New Delhi
1958 National Award, New Delhi
1959 Honorable Mention, Sao Paolo Biennale
1970 JD Rockefeller fund fellowship
1972 Padmashree from Indian Government for short stories
1975 Uttar Pradesh State Government for short stories in Hindi
1985 Kalidas Samman by the Madya Pradesh State Govt