Crucifixion of Civilisation, home at last
A copy of Rayner Hoff’s lost maquette is finally exhibited in Sydney’s Anzac Memorial.
In November 2024 the Anzac Memorial in Hyde Park began a series of events to celebrate the 90th anniversary of the opening of the Memorial in 1934. Central to the current exhibition in the Memorial is a reconstruction of a maquette of one of Rayner Hoff’s sculptures, which was made at the National Art School in 2017. This sculpture and in fact all the sculptures on the Memorial, have meant that the history of the National Art School and the Anzac Memorial have been closely linked for all of those 90 years.
The original design for the Anzac Memorial by architect C. Bruce Dellit and sculptor and National Art School teacher Rayner Hoff included two monumental groups for the exterior, both of which contained naked female figures as the central element. One was bound to the sword of Mars as if crucified, symbolising the beginning of the Great War, 1914. The other was the figure of Britannia with her arms raised in victory, to symbolise the end of the war in 1918.
Hoff and his assistants had made the one third size plaster models Crucifixion of Civilisation and Victory after Sacrifice by 1932. The final works were intended to be made of bronze, 4.27 metres high, and were to be placed on the stone platforms built for them in front of the amber glass of the eastern and western windows of the Memorial. Sadly, due to a controversy in the press over the subject matter, and the cost of the bronze casting, they were never made to the size intended, and Hoff’s original plaster models were eventually destroyed in 1958.
A rare opportunity to remake one of these sculptures arose in 2017, when the National Art School hosted the launch of Deborah Beck’s biography: Rayner Hoff: the life of a sculptor. There was an accompanying exhibition in Hoff’s former studio in Building 11 and the National Art School sculpture staff and students reconstructed one of the lost maquettes. It took four months to make the copy of the maquette of Crucifixion of Civilisation, which is the size to Hoff’s original maquette, 1.37m high. At the time, the sculptors only had a few photos as a guide, so it was quite an achievement.
To recreate the maquette, a twelve piece mould was made after the work was finished in clay. It was complex and difficult work, and the completed maquette was first exhibited in Hoff’s former studio in 2017, and has been on display outside the National Art School archives since then. It is currently on loan to the Anzac Memorial, and can be seen on display opposite the shop on the ground floor of the Memorial. This is the first time any 3D image of this sculpture has been shown in the Anzac Memorial, where it was originally planned to be installed in 1933. How amazing it would be to see the stunning full scale bronze versions of the two missing works finally placed on the empty platforms made for them on the exterior of the Memorial.
Despite partial completion of Dellit’s plan of the Memorial with the new cascading waterfall in 2018, the two huge bronze groups planned for the exterior have not been made, and the building remains incomplete. Surely serious consideration should now be given to Dellit and Hoff’s original vision for this significant site. It is hoped that the new maquette will prompt further discussion on this possibility.
Deborah Beck Nov 2024
