Lot 26: RAMESHWAR BROOTA(B.1941)

PROJECTIONS Signed and dated 'R Broota / RAMESHWAR BROOTA, 1976 / Oil on canvas' on reverse Oil on canvas 176.5 by 123.7 cm. (69 1/2 by 48 3/4 in.) Painted in 1976

Since the beginning of his career, Rameshwar Broota has scrutinized the human condition. His early paintings from the 1960s depicted Delhi's itinerant laborers, despairing men who left their villages for the capital, in hopes of achieving a daily wage. By the late 1970s, his figures became anthropomorphised apes, including the current work from his Ape Series (1976-80) – satirical paintings which reveal the artist's obsession with the delicate balance between man's fragile morality and violent simian nature.