Welcome, this is the Osca Monthly Where in Melbourne Puzzle page.
THIS PUZZLE IS SOLVED
DEGREE OF DIFFICULTY
Here is the first clue:
"The subject of this puzzle can be found in the City."
but thanks to the generosity of a foundry owner it is back.
Clue 3 - Along with the Burke and Wills monument,
this statue is one of only two free standing art works in the City Square precinct.
Solution
The picture is of Larry La Trobe,
located on the corner of Collins Street and Swanston Street, Melbourne
Larry La Trobe is the name given to a popular, cast bronze statue of a dog situated on the northern end of Melbourne’s City Square. Along with the Burke and Wills monument, the statue is one of only two free standing art works in the City Square precinct.
Melbourne artist Pamela Irving was commissioned to create the statue by the Melbourne City Council in 1992 for Melbourne’s Open Air Sculpture Museum. Based on her own dog, Lucy, the statue is not representative of any particular breed but was crafted to generate a sense of Australian larrikinism in the viewer.
Pamela Irving pictured at the 2011 Society of American Mosaic Artists conference in Austin, Texas.
Pamela named the statue after her uncle Larry and the surname La Trobe was appended to represent the relationship with Melbourne and the state of Victoria. Charles La Trobe was the first Lieutenant-Governor of the state of Victoria.
Despite being anchored by 30 cm bolts, the statue was stolen on the night of 30 to 31August 1995. It was thought to have been taken as part of a university stunt or melted down. A campaign was started by the Melbourne Times, a weekly city newspaper, to recover Larry. The publicity generated by this campaign captured the imagination of the public. A two meter high likeness of Larry was created for the 1996 Moomba Parade to create additional publicity that might lead to the return of the statue.
Although the subject of a significant publicity and media campaign, the original statue has never been recovered and nobody has been apprehended for the theft. In 1996, Peter Kolliner, previous owner of the foundry where Larry was originally cast, paid for a casting of a new statue. The new statue was cast in the same mould as the original but Irving reddened the casting material to provide the second ‘Larry’ with a unique identity.
The second Larry was reinstalled in the City Square and officially unveiled on 16 September 1996 by Melbourne Lord Mayor, Councillor Ivan Deveson.
The two-metre high replica of the statue used in the Moomba Parade was taken to Osaka, Japan, a sister city of Melbourne, in 1997 for the Midosuji Parade, where it was awarded the prize for Best Float.
The second Larry was reinstalled in the City Square and officially unveiled on 16 September 1996 by Melbourne Lord Mayor, Councillor Ivan Deveson.
The two-metre high replica of the statue used in the Moomba Parade was taken to Osaka, Japan, a sister city of Melbourne, in 1997 for the Midosuji Parade, where it was awarded the prize for Best Float.
The statue is approximately 70 cm high and cast from bronze.
RESEARCH LINKS
Mosaic of Art blog
Pamela Irving's website
Wikipedia
