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Alexander Stoddart
Making a Sculpture
My name is Alexander Stoddart and I’ve been commissioned to make this testimonial relief to Sir William and Constance, Lady Burrell
'My career was largely forged looking at the collections in Glasgow’s Kelvingrove Art Gallery where in the middle of the last century, so much of The Burrell Collection’s objects were exhibited. So it’s quite moving for me and a great privilege to be asked to make this testimonial relief.'
Watch the film of Alexander describing the process of making the sculpture, below.
The process of making a relief sculpture
Drawing the cartoon is one of the key first moments
The drawing is put into position
The outline is carefully mapped out
The start of making the physical relief
The relief is built up over time
Work on the figurines depicting the fine and the applied arts begins
With work on the figurines completed, the inscription is next
Alexander making the inscription
The inscription is also hand-carved
Installation day at The Burrell Collection
Alexander with the installation team
The finished relief, now on permanent display
It shows a double portrait of the subjects flanked by figurines one of the fine arts with her palette and one of the applied arts and he’s a blacksmith with his kilt on
'It’s a finished object, it has now reached its dead end; nothing else happens to it. But it’s a consequence of a long process of various stages over about one year involving my studio in Paisley, people from Wales, and folk away up in Nairn at the foundry, various transportations and finally, the team who erected it here at The Burrell Collection.'
Alexander Stoddart in his studio, February 2022
