HOFF, RAYNER (1894-1937)

**PRICE ON APPLICATION**
 
"Pompeian Faun" (c.1930)
cast synthetic stone, white cement & fine grained sand 
by Thomas Grounds & Sons, Newtown
74 x 23 x 36cm
*Art in Australia, Rayner Hoff's Sculpture No.46 3rd Series, October 1932, another example illus pl. 16, pp.53
 
Hoff was a legendary British-born Australian Sculptor. Working between the First and Second World Wars, Rayner Hoff transformed Australian sculpture. He was both part of, and a challenge to, the Australian art establishment as a leading figure in art education and our foremost art deco sculptor, who produced major high-profile commissions and works of explicit sensuality and, at times, radical sexuality. Hoff’s most visible legacy – along with sculptures on renowned art-deco buildings such as the City Mutual Life Assurance building in Sydney – is the sculptures he and his assistants created for war memorials in Dubbo and Adelaide as well as the Anzac Memorial in Sydney. A masterwork of art deco design, the Sydney memorial commission was also controversial, due to Hoff’s plans to include nude female figures, which were never realised.