Ananda Kishore Dhar is a notable Indian sculptor who established himself as one of the best Kolkata’s portrait artists. He graduated from Indian Art College in 1987. From this year onwards the city of Kolkata started having many of his works put with extreme pride in different public locations. One such famous work is a woman holding diyas (lights), which is proudly placed at the entrance of Paschim Banga Bangla Akademi in 2007. Moreover another such Dhar master-piece is standing with pride at the entrance of Academy of Fine Arts: Dhar's huge statue of a woman .  However, in his 24 long years of sculpting life, his main interest is to replicate the facial lines and characters of eminent personalities and legends of India. The list of his models whose facial sculptures he already mastered is starting from Pandit Jnan Prakash Ghosh in his early life, till his last model, former Indian Speaker Somnath Chatterjee. The list includes innumerable master sculptures like Pandit Bhimsen Joshi, Ustad Ali Akbar Khan, Pandit Jasraj and many more. None of his sculpted figurines have been done from photographs or paintings as primary reference point.  His passion is subtler and interestingly delicate; He captures the notable facial lines by studying his model's expression intricately from live sittings of the legendary personalities. The end result of his works are greatly appreciated and has shown to be a creation of life like faces, which interestingly comes to life slowly as he toils with mud and cement.

Mr Dhar at his studio

The Telegraph article on Dhar's Works. 

Mother & Child by Ananda Kishore

The Telegraph has explored the sculptors famous works indepth in this article.