Face facts: Statues of stars like Kane and Ronaldo don't always deliver. Sculptors offer advice

One art critic compared the new Harry Kane bronze statue to a bulging-jawed comic strip character.

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 chiseled soccer 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."

To avoid pitfalls, here are some tips from sculptors:

Do your research

London-based sculptor Hywel Pratley studied countless images of Queen Elizabeth II to create a memorial statue in the East Midlands town of Oakham.

“A good portrait sculpture is evidence of 1,000 decisions after 10,000 observations,” Pratley said.

In addition, Yorkshire county sculptor Steve Winterburn recommends getting close with a subject's family and friends to help find characteristics.

“You don’t want it looking like a Madame Tussauds,” said Winterburn, who created a statue of five Rugby League greats at Wembley Stadium. “It still needs a bit of art in it, a bit of soul. That’s what makes art really sing.”

Smile at your peril

The Ronaldo bust depicted the Portugal star smiling crookedly. Likewise, the Salah sculpture features the Egyptian smiling while celebrating a goal. In Miami, Wade's mouth is open in the statue representing the moment the player famously jumped onto a courtside table and yelled “This is my house.”

It's probably best avoided.

“It’s really difficult to do teeth looking good in sculpture,” Pratley said.

Get the profile right

Start "by understanding the profile" before moving on to determine widths from the front view, Pratley said.

“Get the profile right and you will have won half the battle, because then you can have something at least that you can trust,” he said. “When you’re lost, you can say, ‘well I knew where I was then,’ — and you will get lost as a sculptor in the forms.

"There’s so many to understand. It’s not two dimensions, it’s three. There’s an exponential opportunity for everything to go wrong. If you’ve got the profile, then you can go forward with more confidence.”

The eyes have it?

Winterburn tries to make the eyes “come alive” in his work.

"The eye is the soul of the person that carries it," he said. “If you look at a lot of public work, I’m not being funny, they’re dead. There’s nothing in them, they’re just featureless, soulless. With a painting, if in doubt, fade it out. With sculpture, there is nowhere to hide."

For Pratley, especially when he is working with a live model, “I’m often struck by how the absolute essence of somebody is somewhere between the nostrils and the mouth. The flicker of muscles and the subtle movement of muscles around the mouth is so much you — it’s so much that person.”

On a pedestal?

Commemorative sculpture historically has been on plinths, Branch notes.

“Part of the reason for that is because we put our heroes on a pedestal," she said. "The problem is, the lower to the ground the sculpture is, the more scrutiny it’s going to get and the less it can get away with not looking quite right.”

The Kane sculpture features the England captain seated.

“Being so low, people get to look at it incredibly closely,” Branch said. “It’s trying to get sculpture to be more with the people, but then that comes with its own problems.”

Vote on it

In the UK, local councils — like a city council in the US — might propose a project, fund it and select the sculptor, sometimes with little input from the public and limited vetting of artists.

Branch says there's a better way: Vote on it.

That's what happened for the Emmeline Pankhurst statue in Manchester. A selection committee used an online platform to get public input and Hazel Reeves' proposal to honor the suffragette won.

“It is a really good balance and check for whether people on the committees have chosen the right sculptor or the right composition for that person who is being commemorated,” Branch said. “(The public) may not necessarily be highly educated about sculpture, but they always tend to know whether the artist has hit the nail on the head.”

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