ON NOVEMBER 10, Luke Shepherd, BA Hons (Art), spoke to the Dinas Powis Probus Club about his career as a portrait sculptor, who, instead of painting a portrait, creates a model of a head in bronze.

Mr Shephard was born in Cardiff and after early training as a conventional artist, decided that sculpting a head would be more interesting and allow greater scope to bring out the character of the sitter.

His first work, at the age of six, was of a dinosaur but his later commissions came from many well-known people. Commonly, a bronze may be given as a present or as a permanent record of a company’s founder.

Luke emphasised that it was essential to understand the personality of a subject if the resulting bronze was to be a success and usually four or five sittings would be needed.

Rhodri Morgan and Billy Connelly were interesting subjects who wanted to know all about the modelling process.

George Thomas squeezed in four sittings but was a bit cross with the result and persuaded Mr Shephard to modify his first attempt.

Sir Roy Caine is a surgeon who carried out the first liver transplant in 1968. His sculpture shows him holding a liver in his hand, not as some people think, a pasty. Actor Christopher Biggins also sat for Mr Shephard despite being exhausted by his theatrical obligations.

Mr Shephard explained in some detail the essential parts of a portrait sculpture.

People first of all recognise friends by the shape of their head, details such as eyes, nose and ears follow later. Therefore, Mr Shephard’s first task would be to take careful and precise measurements of the head, working out from the centre of the face to the ears and then other measurements to fill in the details.

Although the nose, eyes and mouth are the prominent facial details, Mr Shephard also pays great attention to the cheeks, brow and fleshy areas around the mouth and neck.

He also likes to show the imperfections such as roughness and irregular skin surface as these are the true features of a bust. Some people want him to give them smooth perfect skin, free from any ageing, but then Mr Shephard is not totally satisfied with the finished result.

An unexpected development of Mr Shephard’s years of studying the structure of heads and faces has led to liaisons with plastic surgeons re-creating facial damage, where he has shown them how to view a face from a different angle.

Mr Shephard is happy if, when the finished sculpture is revealed for the first time, the client’s reaction is one of silence, often quite emotional if the subject is deceased and the family see and remember a dear one.

His only rejection was from Leo Abse who hated the bronze at first, but it is now in The National Museum of Wales.

The vote of thanks was given by Haydn Jones.