With an artistic career of over five decades, the retrospective showcases the artist's works right from 1963. The exhibition includes works from various series created by Broota, including the Man Series, which delineates a prototype of a universal man, one who has withstood various trepidations and challenges put forth by time. Often dressed only in a vest, his nakedness is exposed to the viewer, but what is most overbearing is his loneliness and vulnerability.

Walking along the array of artworks that comprise Rameshwar Broota’s retrospective, presently on view at the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art in Saket, is a deeply thought-provoking experience. There are images from several of his standout series arranged in no particular order, almost as though intended to be absorbed together as one dizzyingly evocative whole. It is when the artist begins to talk about them that a sequence emerges and goes on to unveil the trajectory not only of his own thought process as an artist but also of his conceptualisation of man’s journey through the ages.

Studies of his own anatomy have become digital fragments on archival prints. But, the 1963 canvas is a far cry from his present-day personality. The self-portrait at the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art (KNMA) has a lanky Rameshwar Broota. Student of Fine Art at Delhi College of Art, he stares at the mirror through the corner of his eyes. Now with brows thick, strands of white in his hair, he paints in oil.