Biography
Ron Mueck was born in Melbourne, Australia in 1958. Mueck is now based in London and is internationally recognised for his highly realistic figure sculptures. He had no formal art training and went straight to work as a model maker and puppeteer for children's television and films, including 'Labyrinth'.
Mueck also established his own company, making props and animatronics for the advertising industry. Initially he designed props to be photographed from one specific angle, leaving the other angles rough and unfinished, though he increasingly produced realistic sculptures that looked perfect in the round.
In 1996, Mueck created a half sized figure Pinocchio in the studio of the painter Paula Rego, Mueck's mother-in-law. After being recognised for this sculpture, Ron was commissioned to produce another sculpture. This is when Mueck began his collection with an oversized baby, as a response to the birth of his child and the baby's sudden domination of the household. In 1997, Mueck achieved immediate international recognition when his 'Dead Da'd appeared in the controversial exhibition Sensation: Young British Artists from the Saatchi Collection.
Mueck's maintains an extremely high standard of craftsmanship, beginning with clay maquettes and sculpting in fibreglass, silicone and resin.
Mueck's sculptures faithfully reproduce the minute detail of the human body, but play with scale to produce disconcertingly jarring visual images. His five metre high sculpture 'Boy' 1999 was a feature in the Millennium Dome and later exhibited in the Venice Beinnale . Today it sits as the centerpiece in the foyer off the Danish Contemporary Art Museum ARoS in Aarhus.
In 1999 Mueck was appointed as Associate Artist at the National Gallery, London. During this two-year post he created the works 'Mother and Child', 'Pregnant Woman', 'Man in a Boat', and 'Swadled Baby'.In 2002 his sculpture Pregnant Woman was purchased by the National Gallery of Australia for $800,000.
Mueck also established his own company, making props and animatronics for the advertising industry. Initially he designed props to be photographed from one specific angle, leaving the other angles rough and unfinished, though he increasingly produced realistic sculptures that looked perfect in the round.
In 1996, Mueck created a half sized figure Pinocchio in the studio of the painter Paula Rego, Mueck's mother-in-law. After being recognised for this sculpture, Ron was commissioned to produce another sculpture. This is when Mueck began his collection with an oversized baby, as a response to the birth of his child and the baby's sudden domination of the household. In 1997, Mueck achieved immediate international recognition when his 'Dead Da'd appeared in the controversial exhibition Sensation: Young British Artists from the Saatchi Collection.
Mueck's maintains an extremely high standard of craftsmanship, beginning with clay maquettes and sculpting in fibreglass, silicone and resin.
Mueck's sculptures faithfully reproduce the minute detail of the human body, but play with scale to produce disconcertingly jarring visual images. His five metre high sculpture 'Boy' 1999 was a feature in the Millennium Dome and later exhibited in the Venice Beinnale . Today it sits as the centerpiece in the foyer off the Danish Contemporary Art Museum ARoS in Aarhus.
In 1999 Mueck was appointed as Associate Artist at the National Gallery, London. During this two-year post he created the works 'Mother and Child', 'Pregnant Woman', 'Man in a Boat', and 'Swadled Baby'.In 2002 his sculpture Pregnant Woman was purchased by the National Gallery of Australia for $800,000.