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Holy Cow! Artist creates gigantic sculpture of Harry Caray (pic)

Jason Rowan
| February 23, 2018

A Chicago-area artist recently put the finishing touches on a gigantic clay sculpture of Harry Caray’s head and upper torso. And it’s impressive, indeed.

As noted in the above tweet, Kevin Kirkpatrick, who resides in Freeport, Ill., is a renowned makeup effects artist who has been nominated for two Emmy Awards for his work on “American Horror Story” and “The Knick.” He detailed how the Caray sculpture, which started as 400 pounds of clay, was a labor of love when discussing the project with the Chicago Tribune.

“I’ve wanted to do Harry for such a long time, but I just kept putting it off and putting it off,” Kirkpatrick said. “When they won the World Series, I was like, ‘This is it. It’s finally time.'”

Kirkpatrick stated it took about six-and-a-half months total to complete the piece. He took it with him out to Los Angeles so he could work on it on the side while serving on the crew of HBO’s “Westworld.” Before that, he spent about 12 hours a day for four months working on the Caray sculpture in Freeport.

Interestingly, the Cubs issued a tweet earlier this week noting how it’s been 20 years since Caray shuffled off this mortal coil.

Some additional, fascinating details on the sculpture.

One of the more difficult things for Kirkpatrick to find was the real white human hair, which was inserted into the silicone and styled to look like Caray’s. The glasses were 3D printed and then followed a similar process to the rest of the sculpture. Kirkpatrick spent about $30,000 on the project, and is selling the sculpture for $90,000 to the museum.

Holy cow, indeed.