Robert Charles Hitchcock (born 18 August 1944) is an Australian sculptor. He commenced his career in 1970 and works in a wide variety of subjects and materials. Hitchcock is one of the leading portrait sculptors currently working in Australia today. He is known for his life size (and super life size)

bronze Bronze is an alloy consisting primarily of copper, commonly with about 12–12.5% tin and often with the addition of other metals (including aluminium, manganese, nickel, or zinc) and sometimes non-metals (such as phosphorus) or metalloid ...

sculptures which are located in private collections as well as public works of art in Australia and overseas.

Early life

Hitchcock was born in

Perth Perth () is the list of Australian capital cities, capital city of Western Australia. It is the list of cities in Australia by population, fourth-most-populous city in Australia, with a population of over 2.3 million within Greater Perth . The ...

, Western Australia. He is of Irish and

indigenous Australian Indigenous Australians are people with familial heritage from, or recognised membership of, the various ethnic groups living within the territory of contemporary Australia prior to History of Australia (1788–1850), British colonisation. The ...

descent. In his youth he worked as a carpenter and entered formal study in his early twenties at the Art Department of the Perth Tech College. Whilst he initially wanting to study fine painting in fine art, due to impaired vision (from an accident as a child) he had difficulty in seeing and mixing colours and realised that he had more of an affinity with

three-dimensional In geometry, a three-dimensional space (3D space, 3-space or, rarely, tri-dimensional space) is a mathematical space in which three values (''coordinates'') are required to determine the position (geometry), position of a point (geometry), poi ...

art. The early sculptures of Hitchcock were exploratory in nature and diverse in technique and style. Subject matter tends towards

realism Realism, Realistic, or Realists may refer to: In the arts *Realism (arts), the general attempt to depict subjects truthfully in different forms of the arts Arts movements related to realism include: *American Realism *Classical Realism *Liter ...

and

expressionism Expressionism is a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Northern Europe around the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it rad ...

of the "continuity of movement in space"Gasser, Mark. "Interview with Robert Hitchcock 2010" and the subjects themselves include natural forms, and realistic modelling of animals and figures in movement. Hitchcock later moved away from this early

(which he sought to create in his sculptures) to a "more stylized and abstract search of forms and planes". After graduating in 1969 he worked in plaster factories (learning plaster piece moulding techniques),

fibreglass Fiberglass (American English) or fibreglass ( Commonwealth English) is a common type of fiber-reinforced plastic using glass fiber. The fibers may be randomly arranged, flattened into a sheet called a chopped strand mat, or woven into glass c ...

factories and various

foundries.

Professional career

His first

commission In-Commission or commissioning may refer to: Business and contracting * Commission (remuneration), a form of payment to an agent for services rendered ** Commission (art), the purchase or the creation of a piece of art most often on behalf of anot ...

came in 1970 of the champion

race horse ''Race Horse'' was an 1850 clipper barque. She set a record of 109 days from New York to San Francisco during the first Clipper Race around the Horn. Construction ''Race Horse'' was similar to a barque built by Samuel Hall a few years earlier, ...

Aquanita, which competed in the

Melbourne Cup The Melbourne Cup is an annual Group 1 Thoroughbred horse race held in Melbourne, Australia, at the Flemington Racecourse. It is a 3200-metre race for three-year-olds and older, conducted by the Victoria Racing Club that forms part of the ...

in the early 1960s, and was a quarter life size. As Hitchcock's reputation grew he received a number of similar commissions from the equestrian industries including racing,

pacing Pacing may refer to: In sport * Pacing, an athletic technique of spreading one's effort out over longer-distance track and field races (also in swimming) * Pacing (horse gait), a horse gait used in standardbred horse races * Motor-paced racing ...

polo Polo is a stick and ball game that is played on horseback as a traditional field sport. It is one of the world's oldest known team sports, having been adopted in the Western world from the game of Chovgan (), which originated in ancient ...

and quarter horse racing. These early works led in later life to Hitchcock receiving commissions for over life size equestrian commissions in

Norseman The Norsemen (or Northmen) were a cultural group in the Early Middle Ages, originating among speakers of Old Norse in Scandinavia. During the late eighth century, Scandinavians embarked on a large-scale expansion in all directions, giving ris ...

, Merredin and Moora,

Western Australia Western Australia (WA) is the westernmost state of Australia. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east, and South Australia to the south-east. Western Aust ...

as public works of art. In the 1970s, Hitchcock began to receive increasingly significant recognition for his work. These include a series of sculptures of the Russian Ballet Dancer

Rudolf Nureyev Rudolf Khametovich Nureyev (17 March 19386 January 1993) was a Soviet-born ballet dancer and choreographer. Nureyev is widely regarded as the preeminent male ballet dancer of his generation as well as one of the greatest ballet dancers of all ...

. Throughout his career he has created sculptures of prominent and (in his own words) "interesting people". These include

Leonard Cohen Leonard Norman Cohen (September 21, 1934November 7, 2016) was a Canadian songwriter, singer, poet, and novelist. Themes commonly explored throughout his work include faith and mortality, isolation and depression, betrayal and redemption, soc ...

Rod McKuen Rodney Marvin McKuen ( ; ; April 29, 1933 – January 29, 2015) was an American poet, singer-songwriter, and composer. He was one of the best-selling poets in the United States during the late 1960s. Throughout his career, McKuen produced a wide ...

, Professor Ian Constable,

Beethoven Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December 177026 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. He is one of the most revered figures in the history of Western music; his works rank among the most performed of the classical music repertoire ...

Robbie Burns Robert Burns (25 January 1759 – 21 July 1796), also known familiarly as Rabbie Burns, was a Scottish poet and lyricist. He is widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland and is celebrated worldwide. He is the best known of the poets wh ...

(for the Robbie Burns Society) and many prominent Australian public and sporting figures. Towards the end of the 1970s Hitchcock bronzes took on a larger scale, which was particularly suited for public art commissions – the most significant of which is, almost certainly, his sculpture of Yagan. From the mid-1970s, members of the

Noongar The Noongar (, also spelt Noongah, Nyungar , Nyoongar, Nyoongah, Nyungah, Nyugah, and Yunga ) are Aboriginal Australian people who live in the South West, Western Australia, south-west corner of Western Australia, from Geraldton, Western Aus ...

community lobbied for the erection of a statue of

Yagan Yagan (; – 11 July 1833) was an Aboriginal Australian warrior from the Noongar people. Yagan was pursued by the local authorities after he killed Erin Entwhistle, a servant of farmer Archibald Butler. It was an act of retaliation aft ...

as part of the

WAY 1979 WAY 79, also referred to as WAY '79 and WAY 1979, was the official 1979 sesquicentenary, sesquicentennial (150th anniversary) celebration of the European Swan River Colony, colonisation of Western Australia. Planning Preliminary planning for WA ...

sesquicentennial celebrations. Their requests were refused, however, after the

Premier Premier is a title for the head of government in central governments, state governments and local governments of some countries. A second in command to a premier is designated as a deputy premier. A premier will normally be a head of govern ...

Charles Court Sir Charles Walter Michael Court (29 September 1911 – 22 December 2007) was an Australian politician who was the premier of Western Australia from 8 April 1974 to 25 January 1982. A member of the Western Australian Liberal Party, Liberal Par ...

was advised by one prominent historian that Yagan was not important enough to warrant a statue. The Noongar community then established a Yagan Committee and eventually raised sufficient funds to commission Hitchcock to create a statue. The result was a life-size statue in

, depicting Yagan standing naked with a spear held across his shoulders. Hitchcock's statue of Yagan was officially opened by Yagan Committee chairperson Elizabeth Hanson on 11 September 1984. It stands on

Heirisson Island Heirisson Island is an artificially created island in the Swan River in Western Australia at the eastern end of Perth Water, within the suburb of East Perth. It occupies an area of , and is connected to the two foreshores by the Causeway and th ...

in the Swan River near Perth. Yagan Statue 2005

Hitchcock moved into his larger studio (which he currently works from) in 2000 and continues to be highly sought after and collectable. A recent high-profile commission was for the SAS Garden of Reflection in Perth. This consists of three larger than life size SAS figures in various uniforms from 1957 (the inception of the SAS in Australia) with the remaining two in modern combat uniform and weapons. These commissions are highly accurate in detail and give a true representation of the Australia SAS soldier.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hitchcock, Robert 1944 births Living people 20th-century Australian sculptors Artists from Perth, Western Australia Indigenous Australians from Western Australia Australian people of Irish descent 21st-century Australian sculptors Australian male sculptors