Peter CORLETT

b. Australia, 1944.

The leg through the ceiling 1966-67

fibreglass and resin

On loan from the collection of Irwin Hirsh

About the artist and their work:

Peter Corlett grew up in Melbourne and studied Fine Art Sculpture at Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in the early 1960s. He found success early with commissions and public art projects. His large-scale interactive abstract sculpture Tarax 1969 was on permanent display in the gardens of the National Gallery of Victoria throughout 1970s and 80s. It became an iconic and much-loved example of public sculpture in Melbourne and is now on display at the McClelland Sculpture Park on the Mornington Peninsula.

In the 1970s and 80s Corlett focused on figurative sculpture and made life-sized sculptural portraits of people with an exacting likeness. Peter became a close friend of Etta and Emmanuel Hirsh and several of his sculptures were part of their family life and home, including The leg through the ceiling, which was on permanent display in their dining room. Etta and Emmanuel would later gift Corlett’s Connoisseur II sculpture to the NGV in 1984 and this artwork became one of the iconic works of the NGV collection of Australian Art. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s Corlett focused on producing public sculptures and statues of public figures.