His first exhibition was inaugurated in New York in 1951, by
India's permanent representative to the United Nations. Upon his return from US, Sehgal taught at the
Modern School, New Delhi for a short while, and his wife Shukla Dhawan was also a teacher at its Junior School. Later he remained a faculty at
College of Art, Delhi,
University of Delhi and established his studio in Delhi. In time, he became a leading exponents of modernism in Indian sculptor. Themes of much of his oeuvre revolved around the importance of individual freedom and human dignity, and his response the horrors of political violence. His works were exhibited in many places across the world, winning him international acclaim. In 1957, he was commissioned to create a mural for the
Vigyan Bhavan, India's first state convention center. The bronze mural spanned 140 feet by 40 feet, depicting rural and modern India, and was completed five years later and installed in the
foyer of the building in 1962. Subsequently, in 1979, during renovations, the mural was removed without his consent, and shifted to the storehouse. When in the following years despite his request no action was taken, He filed a case at the
Delhi High Court seeking damages. Thus
Amar Nath Sehgal v. Union of India. After a 13-year-long legal proceeding, the case was finally decided in his favour on 21 February 2005. Besides art, Sehgal was also a poet, he published two collection of his poems,
Lonesome Journey (1996) and
Awaiting a New Dawn (1998). A bronze sculpture titled,
The Captive, first designed by Sehgal for the UN conference on sanctions against South Africa, held in Paris in 1986 was later installed in
Robben Island,
Cape Town,
Nelson Mandela's former island prison, on
National Women's Day, 9 August 2011. In the following year, a large stone sculpture by him, "Aiming For Excellence" was installed at the DDA
Yamuna Sports Complex in New Delhi. In October 2004, an exhibition of his paintings on
Ramayana and
Mahabharata, as "tribute to Rishi Valmiki and Rishi Vyasa" was inaugurated by then President A P J Abdul Kalam at the
Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts . The
Lalit Kala Akademi, India's National Academy of Art, in 1993, awarded him the
Lalit Kala Akademi Fellowship, the highest honour in the fine arts conferred by the
Government of India. He had a close to the first Prime Minister
Jawaharlal Nehru and subsequently the
Nehru–Gandhi family. In the following year, he was posthumously awarded the
Padma Bhushan, by
Government of India. ==Monographs and other works==