Peter Corlett
Australian sculptor
title: "Peter Corlett" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["20th-century-australian-sculptors", "1944-births", "living-people", "21st-century-australian-sculptors"] description: "Australian sculptor" topic_path: "geography/australia" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Corlett" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0
::summary Australian sculptor ::
::data[format=table title="Infobox artist"]
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| name | Peter Corlett |
| image | Simpson and his Donkey statue in Canberra.jpg |
| caption | Simpson and his donkey, 1915 by Peter Corlett |
| birth_date | |
| birth_place | Melbourne, Australia |
| nationality | Australian |
| field | sculpture |
| training | RMIT University, Melbourne |
| website | www.petercorlett.com |
| :: |
|name = Peter Corlett |image = Simpson and his Donkey statue in Canberra.jpg |upright= |alt = |caption = Simpson and his donkey, 1915 by Peter Corlett |birth_name = |birth_date = |birth_place = Melbourne, Australia |death_date = |death_place = |nationality = Australian |field = sculpture |training = RMIT University, Melbourne |movement = |works = |patrons = |influenced by = |influenced = |awards = |website = www.petercorlett.com
Peter Corlett OAM (born 1944) is an Australian sculptor, known for his full-figure sculptures cast in bronze, especially his memorial works.
Corlett studied sculpture at RMIT University, Melbourne, from 1961 to 1964. In 1975, he was awarded a special projects grant from the Visual Arts Board of the Australia Council. Between 1977 and 1980, he was artist in residence at Exeter University and Exeter College of Art in the United Kingdom.
Memorial works
In 1987, Corlett won a competition to create a memorial "to commemorate the courage and compassion" of John Simpson Kirkpatrick, a stretcher bearer during the Gallipoli Campaign in World War I. The result was a full size bronze sculpture, Simpson and his donkey, 1915, that now stands outside the Australian War Memorial in Canberra.
Cobbers is a full-size bronze sculpture created in 1998 for the Australian Memorial Park, near Fromelles in northern France. It depicts Sergeant Simon Fraser, a stretcher bearer with the 57th Battalion, rescuing a wounded compatriot from no man's land after the Battle of Fromelles (1916). The title comes from a letter that Fraser, a farmer from Byaduk, Victoria, wrote a few days after the battle and that was widely quoted in Australia's official history of World War I. In it, Fraser describes how one wounded soldier shouted out "Don't forget me, cobber." as he was helping another: Fraser went to get more stretcher bearers and both wounded soldiers were rescued. A replica of the sculpture is in the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne.
Corlett's other memorial works include:
- The Bullecourt Digger
- Memorial to the Australian Light Horse
- Man in the mud
- Sir Edward "Weary" Dunlop
- They also served, (Two WRANS 1941–1985)
- Edward 'Ted' Kenna VC
Other works
Corlett has also created several sculptures of famous people associated with his native Melbourne, such as John Farnham, Kylie Minogue and Dame Nellie Melba. Several of these can be seen at Waterfront City in the Melbourne Docklands. He also produced a bronze sculpture of a Kelpie for the Victorian town of Casterton. He created the sculptures of former Victorian premiers at Treasury Gardens and has been commissioned to sculpt the controversial statue of Daniel Andrews. File:John farnham statue at waterfront city.jpg|John Farnham File:Kylie minogue statue at waterfront city.jpg|Kylie Minogue File:Melba statue at waterfront city.jpg|Dame Nellie Melba File:Graham kennedy statue at waterfront city.jpg|Graham Kennedy File:Edward Dunlop (statue in Melbourne Botantic Gardens).jpg|Edward "Weary" Dunlop, Royal Botanic Gardens, Melbourne File:Edward 'Weary' Dunlop Statue, Canberra.jpg|"Weary" Dunlop, 2nd of two, Australian War Memorial, Canberra File:Western Front Gallery at the Australian War Memorial (MG 9470).jpg|Man in the mud at the Australian War Memorial File:Sculpture of Ronald Campbell Gunn in City Park Launceston March 2015.jpg|Ronald Campbell Gunn, City Park, Launceston, Tasmania File:Statue of John Monash, Monash University (Clayton Campus), Melbourne 2017-10-30 01.jpg|John Monash, Clayton Campus, Monash University
References
References
- "Artist Profiles: Peter Corlett, 1944–". Australian War Memorial.
- Bean, Charles. (1929). "The Official History of Australia in the War of 1914–1918". Angus and Robertson.
- "''Don't forget me cobber'' – Sergeant Simon Fraser". Australian Department of Veteran's Affairs.
- McMullin, Ross. (16 July 2008). "After 92 years, cobbers stand tall at the Shrine". The Age.
- "Private Edward Kenna V.C. | Monument Australia".
- Geraets, Nell. (2023-02-17). "Gardens statue to honour Andrews not set in stone ... or bronze ...".
- (2024-09-27). "Former Victorian Premier Dan Andrews to be honoured with bronze sculpture". 9News.
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