Robert Hitchcock

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 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, Western Australia. He is of Irish and indigenous Australian 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 art. The early sculptures of Hitchcock were exploratory in nature and diverse in technique and style. Subject matter tends towards realism and expressionism of the "continuity of movement in space" and the subjects themselves include natural forms, and realistic modelling of animals and figures in movement. Hitchcock later moved away from this early realism (which he sought to create in his sculptures) to a "more stylized and abstract search of forms and planes". 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 bronze, 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 in the Swan River near Perth.

Hitchcock moved into his larger studio (which he currently works from) in 2000. 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.