Ron Mueck

Ron Mueck, the hyperrealist sculptor, learned his craft making models and puppets for television and movies. He was nearly 40 when his work came to the attention of Charles Saatchi. At Saatchi's urging, he began to show his sculptures in gallery and museum contexts in the late 1990s. They met with astonishment and praise, particularly Dead Dad, a silicon and mixed-media model of Mueck's father's body, perfectly proportioned but less than four feet long, which made its debut at the highly publicized Sensation show. The human presence and perfection of detail in Mueck's work, the realism and mysterious, transfigured quality of his figures, which stems in part from his extravagant liberties with scale, excited immediate international attention. Since then, the artist's fame has increased steadily with each new work. This second, expanded edition of the monograph of record updates the only comprehensive publication on Mueck's work. Bastian's catalogue raisonne lists all of his works to date.