Prodosh Dasgupta was a crucial figure of that mid
His legacy has influenced generations of sculptors and his trademark style continues to hold high significance for art historians, connoisseurs
Prodosh Dasgupta was born at Barakar in Dhaka. He graduated from Calcutta University in 1932 and then went on to study sculpture at Lucknow School of Art and Crafts the same year. Then, from 1933 to 1937, he trained under Devi Prasad Roy Chowdhury at the Government School of Art and Craft, Chennai, and earned his diploma in sculpture from that institution. He was awarded a fellowship from Calcutta University, that paid for his travel to the Royal Academy of Arts in London and Academie de la Grande Chaumiere, Paris to hone his skills in sculpture and bronze casting, during 1937 to 1939.
On his return to India in the early 1940s, Prodosh Dasgupta formed the Calcutta Group along with his wife Kamala Dasgupta, painter Gopal Ghosh, Nirode Majumdar, Paritosh Sen and Shubho Tagore.
Prodosh Dasgupta’s sculptures are therefore reminiscent of a time when modern Indian art was radically breaking free of its earlier colonial and nationalist antecedents and evolving its own free will and internationalist credentials. Art critic Keshav Mallik noted, “Prodosh Dasgupta had
Prodosh Dasgupta was appointed the curator of the nation’s new National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA) in 1957. During his tenure of thirteen year at the NGMA, he purchased a large body of works by M.F. Husain, F.N. Souza, Tyeb Mehta, Ram Kumar and A. Ramachandran that would make up the early core of the museum’s permanent collection and helped to build it up as the most regarded repository of modern Indian art. In 1955, he was made a Fellow at the Royal Society of Arts in London. He was also conferred Fellow of the Lalit Kala Akademi in New Delhi in 1982 and also
Reference:
Prodosh Dasgupta, "The Calcutta Group: Its Aims and Achievements," Lalita Kala Contemporary 31. New Delhi, April 1981
Soumitra Das. “A Fine Balance” The Telegraph. July 29, 2012
Christies Auction Catalogue. “South Asian Modern + Contemporary Art.” June
“Clay Clan: Late Sculptors Pradosh Dasgupta and Sarbari Roy Choudhury Remembered through a Show.” Blouin Artinfo. April 3, 2012.
Prasanta Daw. “A Concise Chronicle of Bengal’s Modern Sculpture.” Art Etc – News & Views. December 2010, Calcutta