Face facts: Statues of stars like Kane and Ronaldo don't always deliver. Sculptors offer advice

LONDON (AP) — One art critic compared the new Harry Kane bronze statue to a bulging-jawed comic strip character.

In Miami, observers say the Dwyane Wade sculpture looks more like actor Laurence Fishburne than the former basketball star. Of course, the infamous Cristiano Ronaldo bust in 2017 gave the chiseled soccer star a chubby face and goofy smile.

A statue of Mohamed Salah in 2018 depicted the Liverpool star with a disproportionately large head. In 2011, a terracotta warrior statue of Andy Murray at a Shanghai tennis tournament drew chuckles, including from the star himself: “I thought I was better looking than that."

It wasn't always this way. In classical times, sculptors “had absolutely no interest in depicting people accurately,” explained Lucy Branch, a London-based sculptural conservator.

“What they ended up doing quite often, they recycled sculptures so when another athlete became more prominent, they just changed the name on the plaque,” said Branch, host of the “Sculpture Vulture” podcast.

“There’s this idea now, in this era, that commemorative sculpture should be like portraiture — it should look exactly like the person they are commemorating. But actually that's a really new idea in sculpture."

To avoid pitfalls, here are some tips from sculptors:

London-based sculptor Hywel Pratley studied countless images of Queen Elizabeth II to create a memorial statue in the East Midlands town of Oakham.

“A good portrait sculpture is evidence of 1,000 decisions after 10,000 observations,” Pratley said.

In addition, Yorkshire county sculptor Steve Winterburn recommends getting close with a subject's family and friends to help find characteristics.

“You don’t want it looking like a Madame Tussauds,” said Winterburn, who created a statue of five Rugby League greats at Wembley Stadium. “It still needs a bit of art in it, a bit of soul. That’s what makes art really sing.”

The Ronaldo bust depicted the Portugal star smiling crookedly. Likewise, the Salah sculpture features the Egyptian smiling while celebrating a goal. In Miami, Wade's mouth is open in the statue representing the moment the player famously jumped onto a courtside table and yelled “This is my house.”

It's probably best avoided.

“It’s really difficult to do teeth looking good in sculpture,” Pratley said.

Start "by understanding the profile" before moving on to determine widths from the front view, Pratley said.

“Get the profile right and you will have won half the battle, because then you can have something at least that you can trust,” he said. “When you’re lost, you can say, ‘well I knew where I was then,’ — and you will get lost as a sculptor in the forms.

"There’s so many to understand. It’s not two dimensions, it’s three. There’s an exponential opportunity for everything to go wrong. If you’ve got the profile, then you can go forward with more confidence.”

Winterburn tries to make the eyes “come alive” in his work.

"The eye is the soul of the person that carries it," he said. “If you look at a lot of public work, I’m not being funny, they’re dead. There’s nothing in them, they’re just featureless, soulless. With a painting, if in doubt, fade it out. With sculpture, there is nowhere to hide."

For Pratley, especially when he is working with a live model, “I’m often struck by how the absolute essence of somebody is somewhere between the nostrils and the mouth. The flicker of muscles and the subtle movement of muscles around the mouth is so much you — it’s so much that person.”

Commemorative sculpture historically has been on plinths, Branch notes.

“Part of the reason for that is because we put our heroes on a pedestal," she said. "The problem is, the lower to the ground the sculpture is, the more scrutiny it’s going to get and the less it can get away with not looking quite right.”

The Kane sculpture features the England captain seated.

“Being so low, people get to look at it incredibly closely,” Branch said. “It’s trying to get sculpture to be more with the people, but then that comes with its own problems.”

In the UK, local councils — like a city council in the US — might propose a project, fund it and select the sculptor, sometimes with little input from the public and limited vetting of artists.

Branch says there's a better way: Vote on it.

That's what happened for the Emmeline Pankhurst statue in Manchester. A selection committee used an online platform to get public input and Hazel Reeves' proposal to honor the suffragette won.

“It is a really good balance and check for whether people on the committees have chosen the right sculptor or the right composition for that person who is being commemorated,” Branch said. “(The public) may not necessarily be highly educated about sculpture, but they always tend to know whether the artist has hit the nail on the head.”

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FILE - A statue of Brazilian soccer legend Pele stands on the side of the highway at the entrance to Tres Coracoes, the city where he was born in Brazil, Monday, Dec. 5, 2022. (AP Photo/Bruna Prado, File)

FILE - Former LA Galaxy MLS soccer midfielder David Beckham looks at a statue of himself at Legends Plaza in front of Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson, Calif., Saturday, March 2, 2019. (AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu, File)

FILE - A child touches a statue of Portuguese star soccer player Cristiano Ronaldo in Funchal, the capital of Madeira island, Portugal, Monday, March 27 2017. (AP Photo/Armando Franca, File)

FILE - Andy Murray of Britain poses next to a terracotta warrior sculpture of him after he unveiled it at the Shanghai Masters tennis tournament in Shanghai, China, Tuesday, Oct. 11, 2011. (AP Photo/Andy Wong, File)

FILE - A bronze statue of Liverpool striker Mohammed Salah is on display in a conference hall at an international youths gathering, in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, Monday, Nov. 5, 2018. (AP Photo/Ayman Aref, File)

FILE - Former Miami Heat NBA basketball player Dwyane Wade looks at a bronze statue in his image during its unveiling ceremony outside Kaseya Center, Sunday, Oct. 27, 2024, in Miami, Fla. (AP Photo/Michael Laughlin, File)

FILE - Real Madrid's Cristiano Ronaldo stands next to a bust of himself at the Madeira international airport outside Funchal, the capital of Madeira island, Portugal, Wednesday March 29, 2017. (AP Photo/Armando Franca, File)

A statue of England and Bayern Munich striker Harry Kane during the unveiling of a statue at The Peter May Centre in London, Monday Nov. 18, 2024. (Zac Goodwin/PA via AP)

Harry Kane poses during the unveiling of a statue of himself at The Peter May Centre in London, Monday Nov. 18, 2024. (Zac Goodwin/PA via AP)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Most American presidents aspire to the kind of greatness that prompts future generations to name important things in their honor.

Donald Trump isn't leaving it to future generations.

As the first year of his second term wraps up, his administration and allies have put the president’s name on the U.S. Institute of Peace, the Kennedy Center performing arts venue and a new class of battleships.

That’s on top of the “Trump Accounts” for tax-deferred investments, the TrumpRx government website soon to offer direct sales of prescription drugs, the “Trump Gold Card” visa that costs at least $1 million and the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity, a transit corridor included in a deal his administration brokered between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

On Friday, he plans to attend a ceremony in Florida where local officials will dedicate a 4-mile (6-kilometer) stretch of road from the airport to his Mar-a-Lago estate as President Donald J. Trump Boulevard.

It’s unprecedented for a sitting president to embrace tributes of that number and scale, especially those proffered by members of his administration. And while past sitting presidents have typically been honored by local officials naming schools and roads after them, it's exceedingly rare for airports, federal buildings, warships or other government assets to be named for someone still in power.

“At no previous time in history have we consistently named things after a president who was still in office,” said Jeffrey Engel, the David Gergen Director of the Center for Presidential History at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. “One might even extend that to say a president who is still alive. Those kind of memorializations are supposed to be just that — memorials to the passing hero.”

White House spokeswoman Liz Huston said the TrumpRx website linked to the president's deals to lower the price of some prescription drugs, along with “overdue upgrades of national landmarks, lasting peace deals, and wealth-creation accounts for children are historic initiatives that would not have been possible without President Trump’s bold leadership.”

"The Administration’s focus isn’t on smart branding, but delivering on President Trump’s goal of Making America Great Again," Huston said.

The White House pointed out that the nation's capital was named after President George Washington and the Hoover Dam was named after President Herbert Hoover while each was serving as president.

For Trump, it’s a continuation of the way he first etched his place onto the American consciousness, becoming famous as a real estate developer who affixed his name in big gold letters on luxury buildings and hotels, a casino and assorted products like neckties, wine and steaks.

As he ran for president in 2024, the candidate rolled out Trump-branded business ventures for watches, fragrances, Bibles and sneakers — including golden high tops priced at $799. After taking office again last year, Trump's businesses launched a Trump Mobile phone company, with plans to unveil a gold-colored smartphone and a cryptocurrency memecoin named $TRUMP.

That’s not to be confused with plans for a physical, government-issued Trump coin that U.S. Treasurer Brandon Beach said the U.S. Mint is planning.

Trump has also reportedly told the owners of Washington’s NFL team that he would like his name on the Commanders’ new stadium. The team’s ownership group, which has the naming rights, has not commented on the idea. But a White House spokeswoman in November called the proposed name “beautiful” and said Trump made the rebuilding of the stadium possible.

The addition of Trump’s name to the Kennedy Center in December so outraged independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont that he introduced legislation this week to ban the naming or renaming of any federal building or land after a sitting president — a ban that would retroactively apply to the Kennedy Center and Institute of Peace.

“I think he is a narcissist who likes to see his name up there. If he owns a hotel, that’s his business,” Sanders said in an interview. “But he doesn’t own federal buildings.”

Sanders likened Trump's penchant for putting his name on government buildings and more to the actions of authoritarian leaders throughout history.

“If the American people want to name buildings after a president who is deceased, that’s fine. That’s what we do,” Sanders said. “But to use federal buildings to enhance your own position very much sounds like the ‘Great Leader’ mentality of North Korea, and that is not something that I think the American people want.”

Although some of the naming has been suggested by others, the president has made clear he’s pleased with the tributes.

Three months after the announcement of the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity, a name the White House says was proposed by Armenian officials, the president gushed about it at a White House dinner.

“It’s such a beautiful thing, they named it after me. I really appreciate it. It’s actually a big deal,” he told a group of Central Asian leaders.

Engel, the presidential historian, said the practice can send a signal to people "that the easiest way to get access and favor from the president is to play to his ego and give him something or name something after him.”

Some of the proposals for honoring Trump include legislation in Congress from New York Republican Rep. Claudia Tenney that would designate June 14 as “Trump’s Birthday and Flag Day," placing the president with the likes of Martin Luther King Jr., George Washington and Jesus Christ, whose birthdays are recognized as national holidays.

Florida Republican Rep. Greg Steube has introduced legislation that calls for the Washington-area rapid transit system, known as the Metro, to be renamed the “Trump Train.” North Carolina Republican Rep. Addison McDowell has introduced legislation to rename Washington Dulles International Airport as Donald J. Trump International Airport.

McDowell said it makes sense to give Dulles a new name since Trump has already announced plans to revamp the airport, which currently is a tribute to former Secretary of State John Foster Dulles.

The congressman said he wanted to honor Trump because he feels the president has been a champion for combating the scourge of fentanyl, a personal issue for McDowell after his brother’s overdose death. But he also cited Trump’s efforts to strike peace deals all over the world and called him “one of the most consequential presidents ever.”

“I think that’s somebody that deserves to be honored, whether they’re still the president or whether they’re not," he said.

More efforts are underway in Florida, Trump’s adopted home.

Republican state lawmaker Meg Weinberger said she is working on an effort to rename Palm Beach International Airport as Donald J. Trump International Airport, a potential point of confusion with the Dulles effort.

The road that the president will see christened Friday is not the first Florida asphalt to herald Trump upon his return to the White House.

In the south Florida city of Hialeah, officials in December 2024 renamed a street there as President Donald J. Trump Avenue.

Trump, speaking at a Miami business conference the next month, called it a “great honor” and said he loved the mayor for it.

“Anybody that names a boulevard after me, I like,” he said.

He added a few moments later: “A lot of people come back from Hialeah, they say, ‘They just named a road after you.' I say, ‘That’s OK.’ It’s a beginning, right? It’s a start.”

FILE - A sign for the Rose Garden is seen near the Presidential Walk of Fame on the Colonnade at the White House, Jan. 13, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, File)

FILE - President Donald Trump speaks with reporters as a flag pole is installed on the South Lawn of the White House, June 18, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)

FILE - Workers add President Donald Trump's name to the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts, after a Trump-appointed board voted to rename the institution, in Washington, Dec. 19, 2025. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

FILE - A poster showing the Trump Gold Card is seen as President Donald Trump signs executive orders in the Oval Office of the White House, Sept. 19, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, file)