Image: Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University
‘Solid Pictures: Photosculpture and the Making of Modern Likeness’ will be on view at the Cantor Arts Center from September 17, 2026, through January 18, 2027. It is the first major exhibition to explore photosculpture, a little-known marriage of art and technology conceived in 1859 by French artist and inventor François Willème. The exhibition is curated by Patrick R. Crowley, Associate Curator of European Art.
Willème and his team of operators employed projection technologies and mechanical instruments to translate photographic negatives into solid figures across a variety of media. The process aimed to create affordable portrait sculpture for the burgeoning middle class of Second Empire France. Willème was twenty-nine when he first conceived these largely overlooked objects in 1859.
François Willème made an ‘Unfinished photosculpture bust’ around 1860 from oak and twine on a base. He also made a portrait of Matilde de Aguilera y Gamboa around 1865 from white bisque porcelain. An 1864 wood engraving documents a photosculpture setup in which twenty-four different views of a subject were taken.
Though the experiments were commercially unsuccessful, they laid the groundwork for scanning, machining and printing technologies described as ubiquitous today.
An accompanying catalogue features four newly commissioned essays alongside previously unpublished documentation, deepening understanding of this overlooked chapter in the history of art and technology.
