Ram Kumar to be honored by LKA, Delhi

Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi, is organizing a special function to honor eminent artist Ram Kumar on his being elected as Fellow of the Akademi on Saturday, 24 December 2011 at Sahitya Akademi Auditorium, Rabindra Bhavan, Delhi.

Among the top names from India’s modern art movement, Ram Kumar is well-renowned for his ephemeral landscapes.The extreme irony in the life around reflects in his paintings. If his Benares series is a haunting meditation on death, the landscape paintings focus on brighter side of life. The vibrant colors and shimmering surfaces exude a sense of restless vitality. His paintings denote the desolation or sense of loss.

In his early works, the painter opted for an elegiac figuration, exuding the excruciating spirit of tragic Modernism. Infused with a great ideological fervor, he dedicated himself to constructing an iconography of victimhood and depression. The paintings imbued with a touch of melancholic Realism not only reflected his acute disillusionment with the anonymity and monotony of urban existence, but also alluded to the dejection with unfulfilled promises after India’s Independence.

He was greatly inspired by its mystical imagery of day-to-day life in Varanasi. When he first went there almost five decades ago, he felt a haunting sense of hopelessness and desolation in the dimly lit, deserted lanes of a dark night. The starkness of this haunting experience only grew with every subsequent trip to the holy city. These impressions marked a major transition in his thought process and practice.

Prayag Shukla and Yashodhara Dalmia will speak about the artist. A documentary film ‘Ram Kumar: Nostalgic Longing’ produced by Lalit Kala Akademi and Directed by Laurent Bregeat Will be screened.

The Lalit Kala Akademi (National Academy of Fine Art) is the premier fine art institution of the Government of India to promote, spread and develop Indian fine art culture. In pursuance of its role, LKA holds exhibitions, institutes scholarships, fellowships, Lifetime Achievement Awards, and publishes documentary material. It also conducts Trienale India, and the National Exhibition of Photography and Art.