Prodosh Dasgupta was born in Dhaka (now in Bangladesh) in 1912. He trained in sculpture at the Royal Academy of Arts and LCC Central School, London, and the Ecole de Grand Chaumier, Paris, after completing his initial studies in sculpture at the Government School of Art and Craft, Chennai, and the Lucknow School of Arts and Crafts.

On his return to India in 1940, along with artists like Rathin Mitra, Nirode Mazumdar, Paritosh Sen, Hemant Mishra and Gopal Ghose, he founded the Calcutta Group of artists, which held its first exhibition in 1943. The aim of the group was to break away from the formal styles that were being taught in Indian art institutions, and move towards a more global aesthetic, which Dasgupta undoubtedly achieved in his sculpture that reflected Western and South East Asian influences along with pre-colonial Indian ones.

Dasgupta served as Curator of the National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA), New Delhi, from 1957 to 1970, during which period the gallery acquired several important works for its permanent collections including those of artists M.F. Husain, F.N. Souza, Tyeb Mehta, Ram Kumar and A. Ramachandran. In 2008, the NGMA hosted a major retrospective of his works, 17 years after his death in 1991.

Dasgupta was also elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, London, and participated in several international exhibitions from 1953 to 1981. His first solo exhibition was held in 1945 in Kolkata, and was followed by several others at the Taj Art Gallery in Mumbai through the 1970s. Posthumous exhibitions of his work include those held at Kumar Gallery, New Delhi, in 2007; and the show 'Works of a Lifetime: 1936-91' at the Birla Academy of Art and Culture, Kolkata, in 1991.