Apollo the Archer

He kneels and draws — the vertical bow taut, sun rays bursting from the arrow's tip as storm clouds churn behind him. This is Apollo at the instant of release, the sun god summoning light from the dark. The composition comes from a woodcut by Lynd Ward, the American master of the wordless narrative in black and white. Here his bold expressionist linework is reinterpreted as a single continuous piece of laser-cut steel, the figure's muscular tension carried from print into metal.

Lynd Ward built entire novels in pictures, carving each scene into wood and printing them as silent visual epics through the 1920s and 30s. His Apollo belongs to that tradition — heroic, dramatic, sculptural. The bearded god, the flexed left arm, the drape falling across the hips, the swirling blue-black clouds: each contour was originally gouged by hand into a block, and that physical decisiveness translates naturally into the language of cut steel.

Cut from a single sheet of 2mm low-carbon steel, every element stays structurally connected — the wavy hair, the drawn bowstring, the radiating sun rays, the platform beneath the kneeling figure. No welding, no assembly, no separate pieces joined afterward. Powder-coated for lasting protection, or finished in corten for a patina that deepens over time. The bridges that hold the design together are engineered into the linework itself, invisible at a glance.

Mounted on standoff spacers, the panel floats 15mm from the wall. Ambient light casts a layered shadow behind the steel — Apollo's bow doubled, once in metal and once in shadow. As light moves through the day, the radiating rays shift across the wall, sharper in direct sun, softer and more atmospheric in the evening.

Four finishes: matte black for the strongest woodcut contrast, matte white for a quieter presence on dark walls, raw steel with a clear protective coat for an industrial grain, or corten rust for a warm patina that develops naturally over months. Five sizes from S (45 cm) to XXL (130 cm) on the longer side, scaled to the original proportions. Weight ranges from approximately 1.5 to 8 kg. All finishes and sizing in the craft and delivery guide.

Part of the figurative collection. Explore more gods and heroes in the full mythology selection.