The exhibition, Ron Mueck at The Andy Warhol features sevenof the artist’s realistic human sculptures including: In Bed (2005) a giant sculpture of a woman lying in bed; A Girl (2006), a vast sculpture of a newborn baby; Wild Man (2005), a nine-foot sculpture of a naked, bearded man; Spooning Couple (2005), a miniature sculpture of a couple lying together on a bed; Man in a Boat (2002) a naked man sitting in a life-size wooden rowing boat; Ron Mueck’s self-portrait, Mask II (2001-2002); and Mask III (2005), a large portrait of a black woman.

 

Mueck was born in Melbourne, Australia, in 1958, to parents of German descent. He often made toys as a child and this hobby became his profession. He began his career in Australia as a puppet-maker, creating marionettes for children’s television. In 1986 he moved to the USA and worked in the film industry before moving to London where he set up his own model-making business. Mueck’s fine art career began in 1996 when Paula Rego asked him to make a sculpture of Pinocchio as a model for a series of Disney-inspired paintings she was making for the exhibition Spellbound: Art and Film at the Hayward Gallery in London. The sculpture was exhibited alongside Rego’s paintings and it caught the attention of Charles Saatchi who commissioned Mueck to make a group of works for his collection. One of these sculptures Dead Dad became the surprise star of the now-legendary Sensation!: Young British Artists from the Saatchi Collection exhibition at the Royal Academy.