Ron Mueck's sculpture 'Dead Dad' at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts 'One of Mueck’s most striking and emblematic works'

A famous sculpture by Ron Mueck at the MMFA! 

The startlingly realistic sculpture “Dead Dad” by famous Australian sculptor Ron Mueck is on temporary loan from Giverny Capital. Come see it in the International Contemporary Art section, S2 level of the Jean-Noël Desmarais Pavilion.

Ron Mueck is known for works at once realistic and enigmatic that depict human beings at different stages in their lives. “Dead Dad,” a portrait of the artist’s father made soon after he died, is one of Mueck’s most striking and emblematic works. The subject’s position makes a direct allusion to art historical representations of the dead Christ. By reducing the model’s size, Mueck disrupts the work’s realistic aspect. It reduces the father’s size to a scale that makes it possible to pick him up and rock him in our arms, heightening as well the sense of loss; the fatherly figure is transformed into a lifeless body, shown in all its vulnerability, like a doll, a toy.