GREER TWISS

Over a career of more than 40 years, Greer Twiss has remained one of New Zealand’s most prominent public sculptors. He graduated from the Elam School of Fine Arts, Auckland, New Zealand in 1959. Then travelling to Britain in 1965 and studying lost-wax processes. He returned to New Zealand, casting small bronze works influenced by Henry Moore. In 1966 he was appointed tutor at the Elam School of Fine Arts. Throughout his career his work has retained a commitment to the figure and an exploration of sculpture’s full potential to engage with volume and space. In the late 1960s, he exhibited a series of Pop-Art inspired beach girls, casting shadows that humorously referenced New Zealand’s ‘hard-edged’ light and since the 1980s he has considered the natural/manmade environment, casting sculptures of indigenous birds. Twiss was a contributing sculptor for the Seoul Olympics (1988). His work is in the collections of the Auckland Art Gallery and the Museum of New Zealand - Te Papa Tongarewa, in Wellington, New Zealand.