Solid Pictures: Photosculpture and the Making of Modern Likeness

Before 3D printing, there was photosculpture: discover the forgotten 19th-century process that revolutionized concepts of sculptural space

Published with Cantor Arts Center, Stanford University.

Automated three-dimensional modeling is older than you might think. As early as 1859, François Willème sought to make domestically scaled portrait sculpture for the Second French Empire's burgeoning middle class. Using an elaborate system of synchronized projection technologies and mechanical instruments, Willème translated the photographic information of silhouette profiles into solid figures in a variety of mediums which he promised to clients in as few as 48 hours. Though these initial experiments proved a commercial failure, they would nevertheless profoundly influence the technologies of scanning and printing that are ubiquitous today. Lavishly illustrated with rare surviving examples of photosculpture, Solid Pictures includes a trove of previously unpublished material including patents, photographic plates and other ephemera.