Cantor Arts Center Explores Photosculpture's Unmet Potential

(MENAFN- USA Art News) A new exhibition at Stanford's Cantor Arts Center,“Solid Pictures: Photosculpture and the Making of Modern Likeness,” examines the 19th-century process of photosculpture and its surprising connections to contemporary 3D technologies. The show, which is on view through January 18, 2027, is the first major exhibition dedicated to the work of François Willème (1830-1905), who introduced the technique in Paris in 1861.

Willème's photosculpture process involved subjects standing on a platform within a 10-meter-wide glass-domed rotunda. Twenty-four cameras hidden in the walls would fire simultaneously upon a whistle. Assistants then projected the negatives onto frosted glass, traced the silhouettes, and used a pantograph to cut each profile into a clay block on a turntable. This method could produce a bust in plaster, bisque porcelain, terracotta, or bronze within 48 hours, from just ten seconds of posing.

Despite its initial promise, Willème's firm underwent two corporate reorganizations, and he was ousted by his shareholders in May 1867. Curator Patrick R. Crowley has assembled 26 surviving photosculptures, including 12 from the Cantor's collection, alongside patents, prints, and glass negatives. The exhibition also features works by contemporary artists such as Oliver Laric, Aria Dean, and Charles Ray, arguing that Willème's failed invention is a precursor to modern technologies like the CT scan and 3D printer.

Among the works on display is Willème's own Self-Portrait (circa 1863 ), a 1924 copy cast by a former employee aiming to preserve the inventor's legacy after Willème had retreated to run a photography studio in his hometown of Sedan. Oliver Laric's Self-Portrait ( 2026 ) presents a 3D-printed Willème in aluminum, in diminishing sizes, mirroring a capability of the original pantograph. The exhibition also includes Mechanically produced bust (circa 1860 ), a wooden woman's head assembled from 100 wedge-shaped sections, and Photosculpture of Matilde de Aguilera y Gamboa (circa 1865 ) in bisque porcelain, which led to Willème's knighthood in the Order of Charles III after he was summoned by Queen Isabella II to Madrid.

Source: Observer Arts

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