PRODOSH DASGUPTA (1912-1991)

Pradosh Dasgupta's sculptures effortlessly strike a delicate balance between ideas of modernism and tradition, integrating the compelling Indian legacy of sculptural practice and the challenging ideals of western sculptors from Auguste Rodin to Henry Moore and Alberto Giacometti.

In this sculpture Dasgupta excels in portraying the human figure with a stylistic simplicity and efficiency of form with its gentle, rounded rhythm which is evident in this work. The figures simultaneously emerge from and withdraw into the solid, monolithic mass. The graceful figures lean against each other, ensconced within these are smaller forms of children and animals that together make up a lyrical narrative. The textured surface further adds to the expressive abstraction of this sculpture. Throughout his career, Pradosh Dasgupta strove to create an aesthetic that was conscious of international art language and yet firmly embedded in Indian ideology and identity. This work bears a debt to Rodin's The Burghers of Calais.