Ram Kumar
Ram Kumar was born in 1924 in Shimla, Himachal Pradesh. While pursuing a M.A. in Economics from St. Stephen’s College, Delhi, he chanced upon an art exhibition in 1945. “I saw paintings like that for the first time and it made me so intrigued that I returned several times”.
Ram Kumar took classes at the Sharda Ukil School of Art under Sailoz Mukherjee and gave up employment at a bank in 1948 to pursue art. Sailoz Mukherjee introduced him to still life painting with live models. While a student there, he met Raza at an exhibition. Raza and Ram became good friends. He convinced his father to pay for a one-way ticket to Paris and studied further there under Andre Lhote and Fernand Léger. Ram Kumar has been one of the first Indian artists to give up figurativism for abstract art. He was associated with the Progressive artist’s group along with Husain, Raza, Ara, Souza amongst others.
