Kurt Wenner’s 3D Money Vault

As the vault doors swings open, loads of cash fall out and money notes flutter through the air. Millions of pounds spilling out of a vault at London’s Waterloo Station stopped many commuters in their tracks. But (as you might have guessed) all was not quite as it seemed. Jay Kleinrichert pointed me to this new “Sidewalk Drawing” created by renowned American artist Kurt Wenner. We have already featured Kurt in one of or previous posts, and one of his murals is still used as thumbnail representing our illusion application for Facebook. Wenner is former illustrator for the U.S. space agency NASA, who began street painting in Rome in 1982 and translated anamorphism – the technique used by artists to create the illusion of height – into a new way of painting to give depth. The art form became known as anamorphic, illusionistic or simply 3D art, and has gained huge popularity around the world. The drawing Kurt created was commissioned by company called “Compare The Market” to represent the £16 million their customers have saved this year so far. The vault took Wenner four days to create. This picture has to be viewed in 3D to get the full effect…






33 Replies to “Kurt Wenner’s 3D Money Vault”

  1. I wonder how long it takes to do something like that. He messed up on the inside of the vault..everything looks all distorted.

  2. A-Mazing. This is my favorite kind of illusion… I swear, the exercise this guy must get walking back and forth getting perspective on this thing…

  3. When viewed head on, it doesn’t look as impressive as viewed at a considerable angle from the right. In the latter case, it really is an awesome illusion. As the angled view from the left, it’s not shown I guess because it was worse that viewed head on.

  4. first star wars… now this

    george lucas u really are a genius!!

    very impressed! does anyone know if he plans on using this technique in any of the movies in the 3rd star wars trilogy? now that would be cool… wow

  5. OMG that is sooo cool i would llooovvveee to go there!

    Dear Mic,
    r u young? u must be to watch star wars !
    P.S i did a looong comment on Lava Burst

  6. If someone done that in scotland it would be destroyed in 2 minute

    P.S anyone think im dissing Scotland i live in there so

  7. what an artist. that would be an awesome job. BTW love the ‘life’s too short for the wrong job’ and the ‘life’s still too short for the wrong job’. Their great.

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