Among his most noted later paintings were his triptych Celebration, which when sold for Rs 15 million ($317,500) at a Christie's auction in 2002, was not only the highest sum for an Indian painting at an international auction, but also triggered the subsequent great Indian art boom;[3] his other noted works were the 'Diagonal Series', Santiniketan triptych series, Kali, Mahishasura (1996).

At 22 years, during the partition riots of 1947 in Mumbai, while staying at Lehri House, Mohammed Ali Road, he witnessed a man being stoned to death by a mob, this he not only expressed in a drawing but it was to have lasting impact on his work, leading to stark and often disturbing depiction of his subjects.

School of Art in 1952, and was part of the Bombay Progressive Artists' Group, which drew stylistic inspiration from Western Modernism, and included greats of Indian paintings such as F.N.

[12] He made a three-minute film, Koodal (Tamil for 'meeting place'), which he shot at the Bandra slaughter house, it won the Filmfare Critics Award in 1970.

Common themes of his works were trussed bulls, the rickshaw puller, from here he moved to the Diagonal series, which he created through the 1970s, after accidentally discovering it in 1969, when in a moment of creative frustration he flung a black streak across his canvas.

[20] In December 2005, Mehta's painting Gesture was sold for 31 million Indian rupees to Ranjit Malkani, chairman of Kuomi Travel, at the Osian's auction.

He received a fellowship from the John D. Rockefeller 3rd Fund in 1968, also in the same year, a gold medal for paintings at the first Triennial in New Delhi, and in 1974 the Prix Nationale at the International Festival of Painting in Cagnes-sur-Mer,[20] France, the Kalidas Samman, instituted by the Madhya Pradesh Government, in 1988, the Dayawati Modi Foundation Award for Art, Culture, and Education in 2005,[20] and the Padma Bhushan in 2007.