The Greek sculptor who served as Alexander the Great’s personal sculptor was Lysippos.
Lysippos was a 4th-century BCE sculptor from Sicyon who became the preferred portrait artist of Alexander the Great. Ancient tradition says Alexander allowed only Lysippos to portray him, giving the sculptor exceptional influence over the ruler’s public image. His portraits helped establish the familiar idealised image of Alexander with tousled hair, parted lips and an upward-looking expression sometimes called the “Lysippean gaze.”
Lysippos worked mainly in bronze, and no securely identified original by him survives. Many surviving marble statues are Roman copies or later versions of works attributed to him, including the Apoxyomenos, or Scraper, and the Farnese Hercules. This makes his style difficult to reconstruct with certainty.
His figures generally have slimmer proportions and smaller heads than the robust ideal associated with Polykleitos. That elongation gave them a greater impression of height and movement, helping bridge Classical Greek sculpture and the more dynamic Hellenistic style. Lysippos was also associated with a huge workshop and several sculptor sons, extending his influence beyond his own lifetime.