Mueck’s debut as an exhibiting artist came at the Sensation exhibition at the Royal Academy in 1997, where his Dead Dad was first seen. The astonishment caused by this small sculpture was in inverse proportion to its diminished scale.Yet a work that looked so new, raw and shocking can, of course, also be understood as being’located firmly in the Western tradition of the memento mori, a poignant reminder of our own mortality.

Ron Mueck’s sculpture first came to major critical attention during the Sensation exhibition which began at the Royal Academy, London, in 1997, before travelling to Berlin and New York. Usually cast in silicone, fibreglass and acrylic, his works are celebrated for their incredibly life-like detail although his manipulation of scale means that they evoke physical reality rather than imitate it directly.

In 1999 Mueck became the fifth Associate Artist at the National Gallery, London. This two-year post allows an artist to take up residence in the Gallery, creating new work in response to its collection of masterpieces. Accompanying the series of exhibitions that mark the end of Mueck’s tenure,this book illustrates the artist’s new sculptures for the first time- and discusses in detail the work of a sculptor whose subjects are traditional, although his treatment of them sometimes is not.

Foreword 

Ron Mueck

Mother and Child 

Man in a Boat 

Pregnant Woman 

Swaddled Baby 

Ron Mueck at the National Gallery

by Colin Wiggins 

Ron Mueck: A Redefinition of Realism

by Susanna Greeves 

Catalogue

Biography 

Credits