Face facts: statues of stars like Kane, Ronaldo don’t always deliver – sculptors explain why
Making a sculpture look like its subject is a new idea, an expert says – in the past, sculptors rarely depicted people accurately
In Miami, observers say the Dwyane Wade sculpture looks more like actor Laurence Fishburne than the former basketball star. Of course, the infamous Cristiano Ronaldo bust in 2017 gave the chiselled football star a chubby face and goofy smile.
A statue of Mohamed Salah in 2018 depicted the Liverpool star with a disproportionately large head.
In 2011, a terracotta warrior statue of Andy Murray at a Shanghai tennis tournament drew chuckles, including from the star himself: “I thought I was better looking than that.”
It wasn’t always this way. In classical times, sculptors “had absolutely no interest in depicting people accurately”, explained Lucy Branch, a London-based sculptural conservator.
“What they ended up doing quite often, they recycled sculptures so when another athlete became more prominent, they just changed the name on the plaque,” said Branch, host of the “Sculpture Vulture” podcast.
“There’s this idea now, in this era, that commemorative sculpture should be like portraiture – it should look exactly like the person they are commemorating. But actually that’s a really new idea in sculpture.”
