Umberto Boccioni: Recreating the Lost Sculptures

Of the many ground-breaking sculptures Umberto Boccioni created between c.1913 and 1915, only a handful remain in existence today. Using a combination of vintage photographic material and cutting-edge 3D printing techniques, digital artists Matt Smith and Anders Rådén have recreated four of Boccioni’s destroyed works which are on view at Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art from 25 September to 22 December 2019.

With time-lapse recordings of the printing and digital sculpting processes, “Umberto Boccioni: Recreating the Lost Sculptures” features the full-size 3D prints as well as smaller maquettes highlighting the areas where Rådén and Smith had to compensate for a lack of photographic documentation, drawing on the insights they had gained into Boccioni’s stylistic vocabulary in order to complete their reconstructions of the works.