We'll soon know who the Oscar goes to, but where did it come from? Richard Polich SM ’65, who runs the fine arts foundry, Polich Tallix, is leading a project to craft this year's statuettes using a traditional method. Polich, who earned his MIT degree in metallurgy, was chosen by the academy because of his decades of successfully fabricating challenging projects from massive sculptures like Jeff Koons’ gleaming stainless steel Rabbit in 1986 to public monuments like the Korean War Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC, in 1995. Over three months, Polich’s team has recreated the 50 statuettes beginning with digital scans of a 1929 statuette and a modern-era pedestal base. The item was then 3D-printed and molded so the form could be cast in wax. Each wax statuette was coated in a ceramic shell, which was cured and fired at 1,600°F, melting the wax away and leaving an empty Oscar-shaped form. The statuettes were then cast in liquid bronze at more than 1,800°F, cooled, and sanded to a mirror polish finish. Finally the figures were electroplated with 24-karat gold and black patina was applied to the bases. Why start from 1929? By using an Oscar from that era, one year after the statuette was first created, Polich Tallix artisans are returning to the original cast bronze process. According to the academy, the handcrafted process—from making individual waxes to polishing—has restored subtle features of George Stanley’s original sculpture. Photo: Polich Tallix #oscars2016 #oscars #statuette #history #funfacts #mit #massachusettsinstituteoftechnology