Ram Kumar born in 1924 and grew up in a large middle class family with eight other siblings in Shimla, Himachal Pradesh. He studied masters in Economics from St. Stephens, from Delhi University. He has an interest in Arts and started practicing on his own. He took evening classes at the Sharada Ukil School of Art which was one of the two main centres of activity in the later half of 1940's in visual arts other being the AIFACS, under Sailoz Mookherjee. He left the country to study further in Paris under Andre Lhote and Fernand Leger, two major painters of France.

He has been awarded with the John D. Rockefeller III Fellowship, New York, 1970; Padmashree, Government of India, 1972; Padma Bhushan, Government of India, 2010 and a fellowship by Lalit Kala Academy and also the Officers Arts et letters, Government of France, 2003. His paintings appear to be spontaneous, they are in fact, carefully built up to achieve a dynamic feeling of asymmetry and relief to our aesthetic sensibility.

From 60's onwards, the figure disappears and the image of the physical world, that is of land forms, rocks, hills, houses, birds, stretches of water, sky and clouds; nature in totality with its varied physiognomy seems to engage him. His landscapes, actual (such as Varanasi) or imaginary, offer a scope for form-structure manipulation wherein the subject and style mutually support each other.

Ram Kumar is one of India's foremost abstract painter, seems to have inherited his aesthetic ideals from the early 20th-century modernisms of Paris, London and Vienna experience which has left a deep mark on his artistic approach.

In this abstract painting title ‘Variation on the theme of the city, he has composed different geometrical shapes with the shades of oil colour blending together that forms a structure of a city and creating a depth in the composition.

A majority of Ram Kumar's paintings show the tragic side of urban life, young middle class boys, problems of financial insecurity, unemployment victims of the joint family etc. His landscapes provide a remarkable illustration of how flat areas of light and dark are organized on the pictorial surface with three-dimensional considerations that are only representational.

From 60's onwards, the figure disappears and the image of the physical world, that is of land forms, rocks, hills, houses, birds, stretches of water, sky and clouds; nature in totality with its varied physiognomy seems to engage him. His landscapes, actual (such as Varanasi) or imaginary, offer a scope for form-structure manipulation wherein the subject and style mutually support each other.