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Catalog summary

Ram Kumar Untitled Signed, dated and inscribed '33x40/ Ram Kumar/ 1973' on reverse Oil on canvas 40 by 33 in. (101.7 by 83.8 cm.) Catalogue Note By the 1970s Ram Kumar's landscapes take a further step towards pure abstraction.  He turns away from his focus on Varanasi and during this deconstructionist phase all fleeting elements of man-made structures disappear from his canvas.  These 'purified' landscapes are constructed in muted tones but with a discernibly paler palette than most of his works from the previous decade and contain a greater sense of inward ilumination. Elements of the landscape are pared down to angular prismatic forms which create their own architecture. Sloping, geometric diagonals dissolve and re-emerge at various angles, creating a drifting universe that is in constant flux. These features remain integral to the visual vocabulary that the artist employs in his current work. In the words of Ranjit Hoskote, this period of his work is, 'stripped of sentiment and freed from the burden of description, the landscape evolved into a grand metaphor, a crucible of meterological energies, a dynamic equilibrium poised among tectonic forces of imperious majesty.' ( Ram Kumar: A Journey Within , New Delhi, 1996).