A new micro-sculpture of Albert Einstein, one of the most influential scientists of the 20th century, is going on display at Broadway Museum and Art Gallery as part of its Willard Wigan MBE exhibition.

The tiny micro-sculpture features Einstein standing in the eye of a needle, wearing a grey suit and leaning to one side with the other hand on his hip. The sculpture includes Einstein’s trademark long hair, moustache and glasses.

The glasses are made from 24 carat gold, a fragment from Willard’s own chain that he scraped off using a diamond chisel on a fine syringe.

The hair fibres were plucked out of the air and pushed into the head one by one. The rest of the body is made of cable ties and the whole piece was painted with an eye lash.

The piece is one of Willard’s most complicated sculptures and took around four weeks to make, with an additional one week for the glasses.

Willard said: “I created the sculpture of Einstein from my memory and it was painstakingly hard to get all of the proportions correct. If I had made one mistake, one pulse movement on the eye ball for example, could have ruined the whole thing. Getting the eyes to stare was particularly challenging but I think he has such character, such an incredibly distinctive look that I just had to make him.

“The creation of the micro-sculptures is so hard it drives me mad but once I’ve completed them that’s where the enjoyment is for me. They belong to the public and I know Einstein will be well received at his new home in Broadway.”

It is 100 years since Einstein became World famous when his theory of general relativity was proven right thanks to a perfectly aligned solar eclipse in May 1919.

The sculpture will be on display in the museum from Wednesday 30th October.

Photo by Paul Ward Photography