Sculptor Porcelli was born near Bari in Italy. He was the son of Leonardo, a mariner, and his wife Anna. He came to New South Wales in 1880 with his father. He had initial training with Achille Simonetti and was encouraged to return to Italy to train in the Royal Academy in Naples where he was a pupil of D’Orsi and won medals in exhibitions. He produced a marble Anima which was sold to America. He immigrated to Western Australia with his father in 1898 at the height of the gold boom. He exhibited a plaster bust of the Premier Sir John Forrest with the West Australian Society of Arts and though it is not mentioned in the catalogue it is included in the critical review. 'Hermit’ wrote that “[t]his is a very masterful piece of modelling and a good likeness – work deserving of high praise, and the best by a long way produced in Western Australia.” Porcelli’s father died in 1905 and he returned to Italy for a visit. In 1910 he married Margaret Godwin, a Welsh governess. They had a daughter and a son.
Porcelli worked in stone, clay plaster and marble. His first commission was the bronze bust of Sir John Forrest now in the foyer of Parliament House. He created a large body of memorials and war memorials, the best known of which include the Celtic cross memorial for Sir William Marmion in Fremantle made in 1902, the statue of Alexander Forrest outside Stirling Gardens in 1903, the C. Y. O’Connor memorial of 1911 at Fremantle. In the 1920s he worked in Melbourne on twelve panels for the inner Shrine of Remembrance but made little impact in that city and returned to Perth. In 1922 he exhibited portraits of the Prince of Wales, Lord Kitchener, and Lord Hopetoun and portrait medallions and bronzes with the West Australian Society of Arts. He made the “peace” memorial to the fallen soldiers at the Midland Railway workshops in 1925.
- Writers:
- Dr Dorothy Erickson
- Date written:
- 2010
- Last updated:
- 2011
