Norma Redpath

Norma Redpath was born on 20 November 1928. She studied painting from 1942 to 1948 (with a long break due to illness) at the Swinburne Technical College in Hawthorn, and from 1949 to 1951 sculpture at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, both in Melbourne. Her studies there were largely self-directed, as she found no contemporary sculpture of interest to her in Australia.), where she exhibited, and was later vice-president. == Career ==

In 1952, she was teaching at the Korowa Anglican Girls' School and the Melbourne Technical College, and around this time also set up her first self-funded professional sculpture studio.). In 1962 she pursued her studies at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera in Milan, northern Italy, where she would later make a base as she travelled frequently back and forth between Italy and Australia. Sculptures cast there formed the basis of her Gallery A exhibition in Melbourne the following year. One of the sculptures was awarded her second Mildara Prize for Sculpture in 1964, and in 1966 she won the Transfield Prize for Sculpture. In 1968 she returned to Melbourne, establishing her second studio, in the inner-city suburb of Parkville, where she worked on a number of major commissions. In 1974, while again in Italy, Redpath married Antonio de Altamer, an Italian naval architect. The worked together to refine the technical procedures of the Fonderia Artistica Battaglia and other foundries in the next decade. From the late 1970s she ceased studio work, instead describing her sculptural ideas in a manuscript, Ideas and Images. From 1974 to 1985 she lived and worked alternately in her Milanese studio and Melbourne, and from 1985 she returned to Australia with her husband and set up her third Australian sculpture studio, this time in Carlton. Her last show was at the Heide Museum of Modern Art, in 2000. == Recognition ==

In 1970 Redpath was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire for services to contemporary sculpture. In 2006 she was awarded an honorary doctorate from her old college, now Swinburne University. == Later life and legacy ==

Redpath's husband died in 2000, the same year as her last show. After a long illness, she died in Melbourne in 2013, aged 84. Her Carlton studio and home is owned by the University of Melbourne, and is now available to artists and academics. It is managed by the Centre of Visual Art, and is able to be visited. Residencies of varying lengths of time are offered to artists, writers and researchers to develop new work as well as engage with the local workers in related fields. == Selected works ==

• Areopagitica (1958), Baillieu Library, University of Melbourne • Bronze Reliefs (1964), BP Administration Building, Crib Point, Victoria – relocated to BP building South Melbourne, relocated again to the McClelland Gallery and Sculpture Park in 1997. (image and details) • Treasury Fountain (1965–1969), Treasury Building, Canberra (ACT) – a two-piece bronze fountain in a rectangular granite pond. • Victoria Coats of Arms (1968), above entrance, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne– a bronze relief • Sculpture Column (1969–1972), Reserve Bank of Australia, Brisbane • Facade Relief (1970–1972), Victorian College of Pharmacy, Parkville, Melbourne • Sydney Rubbo Memorial Capital (1970–1973), Microbiology and Immunology Building Courtyard, University of Melbourne • Higuchi Sculpture (1971–1972), Manning Building at the Monash University in Melbourne – unveiled by Dr. Takeru Higuchi details in pdf document page 6 • Extended Column (1972–1975), Canberra School of Music, Canberra • Paesaggio Cariatide (Carrying the Landscape) (1980–1985), undercroft of State Bank Centre, Bourke Street, in Melbourne – since 2003 at the McClelland Gallery and Sculpture Park in Langwarrin, Victoria == References ==