On the Lively Art of Death Masks

I vaguely supposed that this art form, initiated by the ancient Egyptians, had gone the way of the Dodo sometime around the birth of photography and the death of Frédéric Chopin. Not true, as things turn out. In the 1990s a British sculptor named Nick Reynolds found his visual métier: death masks (wax or plaster facial casts of [very] recently deceased persons). It being the 21st Century, Nick creates his casts with alginate, the molding material of choice for dentists and motion picture special effects people. The reason I know these things is because there was a riveting read in the Guardian Unlimited this week about Reynolds, an executed prisoner, a rental car, the dodging of authorities in backwoods Texas and the death mask that resulted from this dramatic episode.

The back story on Reynolds himself is equally fascinating. He is the son of Bruce Reynolds, mastermind of the 1963 Great Train Robbery. You'd correctly suppose that Nick Reynolds has an interest in criminals and the underworld as a result of his upbringing -- an interest that led to his breakthrough 1995 exhibition From Cons to Icons at London's Tardis Studios. For this Reynolds created "death masks" of himself and still-living criminal figures such as his father, "Mad Frankie" Fraser, "Dodgy" Dave Courtney (bodyguard of the Krays) and "Brown Bread Fred" Foreman, in addition to the death mask of one truly dead man, George "Taters" Chatham.

These days Reynolds continues to create death masks and is a partner in the company Memorial Casts. He's also known as Harpo Strangelove, the harmonica player in the band Alabama 3 Acoustic, the "unplugged" wing of Alabama 3. In case you're wondering why this merits special mention, Alabama 3 (known as "A3" in the US) is the band responsible for "Woke Up this Morning," opening song of the recently deceased HBO underworld criminal series The Sopranos. (Ironic little planet we live on some days, iddin it?)

Image credit:

Gilded Funerary Mask of Tjuya
Egyptian, Dynasty 18, Reign of
Amenhotep III (1390-1353 B.C.)
Thebes, Valley of the Kings, Tomb of
Yuya and Tjuya (KV 46)
Gilded cartonnage, glass, obsidian and calcite
H. 43.1 cm, W. 31.1 cm, D. 29.5 cm
Egyptian Museum, Cairo
Photo © Andreas F. Voegelin