The Remarkable Tiny Worlds Created Through the Photographic Memory of Miniaturist Dan Ohlmann

“I’ve just contributed to world of dreamers”

Great Big Story takes a look at the remarkable miniature worlds crafted by the incredibly talented Dan Ohlmann, former cabinet-maker, miniaturist and proprietor of Musée Minature & Cinéma in Lyon, France. Among his very many gifts, Ohlmann has a photographic memory, which allows him to be so faithful with details and creative with illusions within his designs.

A dab hand at cabinetmaking, interior design, and theatre sets, for 20 years Dan Ohlmann has been a passionate miniature maker. His long career and the stringent demands of a craftsman’s life have endowed him with solid technical skills. Combined with his passion for miniature sets, this has made him an artist practising the quirky career of a “miniature reporter”. His time as a cabinetmaker has left him with a remarkably conscientious application of his art. This integrity, this need for authenticity that even in miniature shows respect for scale, for academic or popular styles, traditional assemblies, and the masterful use of raw materials. As a sculptor, he models and carves: scrolls, acanthus leaves, rosettes, or frescoes… often required for a faithful reproduction of a location. As an architect, he has mastered the complex images that are fundamental to his new miniatures, making hundreds of copies, sketches, and photographs. In this way, he meticulously analyses the life-size locations he is tasked with reproducing in miniature. In creating his miniature locations, he
uses the same drawings and calculations that he once used for life-size renovations, interiors, and spaces. As an interior designer passionate about sets, his affinity with inhabited spaces and atmospheres imbued with human presence enable him to create highly perceptive, stunning visual mirages that he calls “real”.