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Welcome to The Society of Portrait Sculptors
The Society of Portrait Sculptors is a representative body of professional sculptors committed to making portrait and figurative sculpture accessible to a wider public. The aims of The Society are to advance the art of three-dimensional and bas-relief portraiture; to maintain, promote and encourage the highest standards; to challenge preconceptions about portrait sculpture and to stimulate increased interest in an art form that is timeless yet contemporary. To achieve this The Society works in several ways but primarily through its Annual Open Exhibition and by seeking to encourage education and training in the art through lectures, prizes and sculpture classes.
Mausolus
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The illustration on our website is thought to be Mausolus, Satrap of Caria (350BC) - considered possibly one of the first portraits of the Classical world. The features of this monumental statue from Halicarnassus (in southwest Turkey), which was on the periphery of the ancient Greek world, create the impression of a real individual.
This is the beginnings of the realisation of personality synthesised in sculptural form by Greek sculptors and is a distinct progression from the more idealised 'portrait 'sculptures of preceding generations.
Image by kind permission of the British Museum.
Pictured: Mausolus, Satrap of Caria
The Society Logo
The logo of the Society is from a Greek intaglio from the Vth Century BC in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, illustrating a sculptor modelling a head. Other engraved gems of the period show sculptors working with a plumb-line with a figure sculpture, still an essential tool for sculptors today.
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Pictured: The Society logo