Ram Kumar is readily acknowledged as one of the foremost painters of the contemporary art movement in India. He had begun his career as a short-story writer in Hindi for which he has received considerable recognition. It was a chance visit to see an exhibition at the Sarada Ukil School of Art in Delhi which inspired young Ram Kumar and on an impulse he got himself enrolled. There he learnt painting under the well known Delhi painter, Sailoz Mookherjea. Later Ram Kumar went to Paris and worked in the studio of the recognised artist Andre Lohte. Influenced by the Paris School, Ram Kumar’s early works were figurative but gradually over the years, his works turned more towards abstraction. It was his trip to Benaras with Husain which came as a turning point in his artistic career. With his series of paintings based on Benaras cityscapes, Ram Kumar emerged as a powerful abstract landscape artist.