The Cynic

One of India’s earliest modernist sculptors, Amar Nath Sehgal studied engineering before caving in to his childhood desire to be an artist. Art education in New York, and frequent and extensive travels through Europe—he would eventually set up his studio in Luxembourg—lent his work a true modernist vocabulary that speaks for itself, without any geographical connotation altering its perception. The crooked smile on the visage of the man in bronze sums up the mood of Sehgal’s youth whereas the fluidity of its lines evokes the lyrical beauty of Barbara Hepworth’s works.