Pietro Porcelli
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Pietro Giacomo Porcelli (30 January 1872 – 28 June 1943) was the Italian-born sculptor responsible for many statues in Western Australia, including the Explorers' Monument, and those of C. Y. O'Connor and Alexander Forrest.
Born in Bisceglie in the province of Bari, he moved to Sydney with his fisherman father at the age of 8. After initial training at the New South Wales Academy of Art, he furthered his study of sculpture and drawing in Naples, before returning to Fremantle with his father in 1898. Later that year, he completed his first commission - a bust of Sir John Forrest that now stands in the main entrance hall of Parliament House. His 1902 statue of Alexander Forrest was the first such statue of a prominent public figure to be completed in Perth.
Porcelli also completed war memorials in Kalgoorlie, Boulder, Victoria Park and Moora, and numerous headstones in Karrakatta and Fremantle Cemeteries, including that of Sir John Forrest in 1918.
After a period of work in Melbourne in the 1920s, he returned to Perth in 1939, where he died in 1943. He is buried in Karrakatta Cemetery.
A bronze statue of Porcelli by Perth artist Greg James was unveiled in Kings Square, Fremantle, in 1993.
[edit] Major works
| Subject | Work | Location | Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sir John Forrest | bust | Parliament House (main entrance hall) | 1898 |
| Alexander Forrest | statue | Stirling Gardens, Perth | 1902 |
| C. Y. O'Connor | bust | Mundaring Weir | 1907 |
| Sir James Lee Steere | bust | 1909 | |
| C.Y. O'Connor | statue | Fremantle Harbour | 1911 |
| Explorers' Monument | monument | Fremantle | 1913 |
| Australian Mutual Provident Society | bronze emblem | Perth (now moved to Floreat Waters) | 1925 |
| Frederick Henry Piesse | statue | Katanning | 1916 |
| Head of Christ | alto-relief marble | exterior of St Patrick's Church, Fremantle | |
| Peace | bronze | Midland Railway Workshops | |
| 12-panel frieze | freestone | Sanctuary, Shrine of Remembrance, Melbourne |
[edit] References
Keane, S. (1990). Pietro Porcelli. Australian Dictionary of Biography, 1891-1939. Melbourne University Press. ISBN 0-522-84437-5
Metropolitan Cemeteries Board (1998). Karrakatta Cemetery Historical Walk Trail.
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