Benaras

PROPERTY FROM AN IMPORTANT MUMBAI COLLECTION

Acrylic and ink on paper
1983
23 × 35 7/8 in. (58.2 × 91.1 cm.)

Signed and dated ‘Ram Kumar / 83’ on reverse

‘And then in 1961 his visit to Varanasi. He had gone to the city to interpret its visual experiences in terms of colour and forms. The confrontation was intense for him, both emotionally and visually, as an artist and as a human being. The river front and its facades — the doorways, arches and steps were his themes. The meander of forms constituted a dramatic structure. He noted the structure of the city as a relic, its wharfage and haven for the philosophy of death and passage of time. There is much to commend in the technique. The ink wash is subtle and the monochrome effect preserves the impression of a remembered thing. In these Varanasi paintings there is the grey of a day breaking over the interior, the sense of the first ripples of water responding to light...’ (Richard Bartholomew, Ram Kumar ’86, exhibition catalogue, Pundole Art Gallery, Mumbai, 1986, unpaginated)

The early 1960s saw Ram Kumar move away from the familiar, lonely figures that had inhabited his canvas for the last decade, to the crowded, sacred cityscape of the holy city of Benaras. Ram Kumar first visited Benaras with fellow artist and friend M.F. Husain in 1959. They stayed at the home of a writer friend of Ram Kumar’s named Sripat Rai. Every morning, the painter friends would wander the city armed with their sketchbooks, and Ram Kumar would spend the day creating several jottings and documenting impressions from various parts of the city.

He was enchanted with the city, and returned to Benaras several times during the 1960s. His complete fascination with its landscape prompted him to revisit the subject in his work at various points later in his career. The Benaras landscape reappears in his works in the 1980s and then again in the 1990s, as seen in the current work dated to 1983.
Condition: The paper tones of the original are slightly lighter and less saturated than the catalogue illustration. Not examined out of frame. Overall good condition.